:- l ■•[. ' 



: : ■. ;/ri D.D. 





Glass JS_BX5 
I* 



Book 



Copyright N 



JO 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE LIVING CHRIST 




Rev. George H. Ide, d.d. 



The Living Christ 

The Vital Force in Pulpit and Pew 



By 
Rev. GEORGE H>IDE, d.d. 



Twenty-two years Pastor of the Grand Avenue Con- 
gregational Church, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 



Life and religion are one thing, or neither is anything. 

George Macdonald 

A minimum of theology and a maximum of simple common sense 

George Adam Smith 



BOSTON 

ZEfoe pilgrim press 

NEW YORK CHICAGO 






€ 



I C< 1 

JTvwo 

I 



Copyright, 1903 
Kate Kingsley Ide 



Press of J. J. Arakelyan 

295 Congress St. 

Boston 



^ 



Zo Obv people 

My Brothers in the Ministry 
and all Truth-seekers 



CONTENTS 



The Living Christ. The Vital Force in Pulpit 

and Pew 9 

Bible Humor 31 

Miracles from the Standpoint of To-day ... 49 

A Great Problem . 67 

The Unseen World 83 

A Religion without a Specialty 101 

A Mountain Background 121 

The Upper and the Under 135 

A Neglected Christian Duty 153 

The Power of the Resurrection from the View- 
point of the Supernatural 169 

Wireless Telegraphy and other Themes . . . 187 

Trouble, an Incident in Life to Overcome . . 207 

Real Goodness 223 

The Manhood of Lincoln 241 

The Motherhood of God 259 

An Ever-Expanding Theology 279 



THE LIVING CHRIST 

THE VITAL FORCE IN PULPIT AND PEW 



THE LIVING CHRIST 
THE VITAL FORCE IN PULPIT AND PEW 

What sort of a being must Christ be in order 
to be a vital force in pulpit and pew to-day? To 
say he is the living Christ is hardly sufficient to 
satisfy the demands of a force, energizing here 
and now, unless we read into the word "living" 
something more than the bare fact of continued 
existence. There is no doubt that the patri- 
archs, apostles, saints and holy men of all ages, 
are "living ;" for God is not the God of the dead 
but of the living ; but they are not reckoned as a 
vitalizing energy, pervading and transfiguring 
the lives of men at the present hour. They have 
left behind them an influence which, more or 
less, affects the historical trend of things; but 
it is an influence gauged and measured by what 
they were in character, while living in the world, 
hundreds and perhaps thousands of years ago. 
We are getting the echo of their lives, rever- 
ii 



12 THE LIVING CHRIST 

berating down the path of the centuries, and 
reaching us in forms of reminiscence and mem- 
ories of glorious achievements. We do not 
think of them, to-day, as in vital contact with 
the spirit of man. They are living, but not liv- 
ing in us, as the quickening force of our lives. 
When we speak of the living Christ, we may 
mean more or less by it. Suppose we think of 
him living, as we think of departed great and 
good men, "still living." What then is his re- 
lation to us? How does he touch us? What 
doi we receive from him? A post-mortem in- 
fluence. This holds true, however much we 
may exalt and magnify the historical Christ, 
while, at the same time, we consider his work as 
belonging exclusively to the past. 

There are certain theories concerning Christ's 
person, which seem to me to cut the nerve of 
faith in an ever-present Christ, in living touch 
with his people. Some of these theories start 
by denying the preexistence of Christ, except 
in some ideal form. How did preexistence ever 
come to be associated with the person of Christ? 
We are told that, in the rabbinical schools, not 
only distinguished persons, as Adam, Enoch 
and Moses, but distinguished objects, as the 



THE VITAL FORCE 13 

tabernacle, the temple, the tables of the law, were 
figured as having had heavenly archetypes, that 
is, they were figured as preexistent. Why did 
men think of persons and things in this way? 
It was through the desire to express the inner 
worth of a valued object, in distinction from its 
inadequate, outward form ; and its essence being 
hypostatized, or made a person, was raised above 
space and time. Such a preexistence is, of 
course, a mere phantom. It is thought, how- 
ever, to express a "judgment of value" for the 
person or thing thus exalted. The person is 
supposed to have the worth and merits of a pre- 
existent being, though he has nothing to show 
for it but the time limit of an ordinary human 
being. Thus it came to pass that the predicate 
of preexistence was only one of several ways 
which the early Church took to express its sense 
of the abiding worth and felt mystery of the 
person of Jesus. One way was to think of him 
as having a supernatural birth ; another way was 
to think of him as the incarnation of the divine 
Word ; still another way, was to think of him as 
preexistent. But these ideas subsisted inde- 
pendently of each other, and along side of each 
other, as distinct but unequal attempts to ground 



14 THE LIVING CHRIST 

the mystery of the life of Jesus in its divine ori- 
gin. All this means that the preexistence of 
Jesus was a mere deduction of faith, on the part 
of the first disciples. It was a "judgment of 
value ;" but the trouble with this judgment is, its 
assets are not equal to its liabilities! The as- 
sets are a being in time; and there is no jug- 
gling with ideals that can answer the liabilities of 
a being who belongs to the eternities! A "judg- 
ment of value" must rest on what is real, not on 
what is ideal. 

The time comes in a scientific age like ours, 
when a deduction must not be infinitely larger 
than the facts will warrant. There is no use at 
the present time of talking about a preexistence 
which never was, except in the form of a sub- 
jective value-judgment, entertained by the first 
disciples. It has no normative value for the 
church to-day. But what has to be done in 
order to maintain that the preexistence of Jesus 
was only subjective? We have to deny the his- 
torical reality of the records, concerning him. 
Consequently, according to the Ritschlian school 
of critics, to whom all religious conceptions are 
but "judgments of value," the revelation of God 
in Christ closes with the cross. But what about 



THE VITAL FORCE 15 

the resurrection, which, according to the records, 
immediately followed the cross? It is elim- 
inated. The resurrection is not to be regarded 
as a historical fact, but simply a value- judgment 
placed upon him by those who were greatly im- 
pressed with his personality. The power of his 
personality over us is quite independent of the 
correctness of the details as contained in the 
records. Help lies, for us, not in what we make 
of the story, but what the story makes of us. 
But since the revelation of God in Christ closes 
with the cross, how does Christ avail for us to- 
day? We receive the impress of his inner life 
"as it is portrayed by those who were lifted by it 
into communion with God, and as it is inter- 
preted for us by the living church around us." 
But when we have found this inner life, through 
the mediation of others, we become free even of 
their mediation, by the significance which that 
life has for our own experience, and we ask no 
more questions regarding the trustworthiness 
of the evangelists. What if these evangelists 
introduce into the records stories concerning 
the miracles wrought by Jesus? How shall we 
regard them? Why, a miracle is simply a relig- 
ious name for an event which awakens in us a 



16 THE LIVING CHRIST 

powerful impression of the help of God. But 
we are not to think of it as an event that actually 
took place. We must keep .t*> the scientific doc- 
trine that nothing can interfere with the un- 
broken connection of nature. It would not be un- 
scientific to believe that Jesus was crucified, but 
it would be very unscientific to believe that he 
rose from the dead! All knowledge of Jesus, 
then, ends at the cross. But where is Jesus 
now? What became of him when the curtain 
dropped at the time of his crucifixion? Was 
that event followed by extinction? Not quite 
that; as one has said, "We cannot think of his 
personal life as something that could be given 
over to annihilation. The same faith that sees 
that God is present in him, must also grasp the 
thought that Jesus lives now." He is living 
now, but what is he doing? Has he any 
thought of us? Yes; he knows how near we 
come to him, or how far we are from him, and 
he is taking part in our battles, with all his hu- 
man sympathy and power. How do we know 
this? It is only the affirmation of our religious 
experience. But, (and here is the tremendous 
negation involved in this view,) we do not hold 
communion with the exalted Christ! We are 



THE VITAL FORCE 17 

compelled to think of him as living and inter- 
ested in us, in order to complete our faith in 
God; but we cannot think of him as present 
when "two or three are gathered together in his 
name." 

Is the living Christ a vital force in pulpit and 
pew? Not if this conception of Christ prevails. 
When we teach that the preexistence of Christ 
was not real, we are compelled, by the very ne- 
cessity of our assumption, to contract and min- 
imize his postexistence. The preexistence of 
Christ is the foundation stone upon which rests 
the belief in his divinity. Remove it, and we have 
left a Christ living, in the sense of continued 
existence, but not a Christ with us "alway, even 
unto the end of the world." We have left a 
"heavenly man" surpassing, in excellence of 
character, a Moses or an Elijah, surpassing in 
excellence the greatest and grandest of those 
who have had part in human history, but not 
the Christ who confronted Saul, the hot-headed 
zealot and persecutor, on his way to Damascus, 
and enveloped him in the blinding light of 
heaven out of which came a voice, saying, "Saul, 
Saul, why persecutest thou me?" A being who 
never had preexistence cannot be magnified 



18 THE LIVING CHRIST 

into divinity, or enlarged into a transcendent 
Christ. He is a subsequent creation and must 
be reckoned as a creature on the plane of hu- 
manity. Mankind was through with him, and 
he was through with mankind, so far as being 
a present vital force is concerned, when he was 
led "as a lamb to the slaughter." 

What sort of Christology is this, that puts the 
author of our religion out of actual and living 
touch with the souls of men, to-day? This is 
not the Christology of the Scriptures; it is not 
the Christology of the Fathers of the church; it 
is not the Christology of Christian experience. 
The Christology that has turned the world up- 
side down, and transformed society, and upon 
which has been reared a Christian civilization, 
is the one in which the Christ has been adored 
and served as the Eternal in time. And he who 
is eternal in time is not the Christ whose divin- 
ity is merely ethical ; that is, having such partici- 
pation in the divine nature and life as can be ex- 
perienced by any believer in a certain degree; 
not the Christ whose preexistence was merely 
ideal, the outgrowth of the fancy of the early 
disciples; not the Christ whose deity is subjec- 
tive, having no place in the realm of realities, but 



THE VITAL FORCE 19 

supported by a play of the mind's own senti- 
ments and reflections. No; he is a Christ with 
actual divine power operating in human life, ac- 
cepting whom, by faith, we put our lives under 
the transforming power of a living, present 
Saviour. It is not enough that God should send 
us a prophet, even though he be the greatest of 
all prophets and bear a fuller and clearer mes- 
sage than any other. It is not enough that God 
should send into the world a supernatural intel- 
ligence to speak to us of himself and heaven. It 
is not merely a message from God that we want, 
but God himself. In Jesus Christ, God is — if we 
may so speak — translated into terms of human 
life. In him we have the actual residue and 
operation of God in human life and history. In 
other words, the living Christ, who is to be a 
vital force in pulpit and pew, must be "the Son 
of God," eternally preexisting in a state of glory 
with the Father, who, in the fulness of time, 
moved by love, became incarnate for our salva- 
tion. 

Suppose that the prevailing and dominant 
conception concerning the person of Christ, 
came to be, that, while he had a true humanity, 
he had not a true divinity. What would be the 



20 THE LIVING CHRIST 

practical effect of this view, as a working 
theory? 

I have read how a farmer's wife, in the Prov- 
ince of Ontario, many years ago, went searching 
the woods for a stray cow, and, becoming 
thirsty, stooped to get a drink from a spring. 
Slipping, she fell against a small, loose rock, 
which rolled to her feet, and which proved to be 
a twenty-pound nugget of almost pure gold. The 
effect of that accidental find was that, within 
six months, a city of five thousand inhabitants 
was built. An immense quarry of purest white 
marble was discovered near by, and the city was 
built largely of marble. Probably the town of 
Bridgewater is the only town in the world that 
has a hotel, church, schoolhouse, court-house, 
and the majority of its buildings constructed 
entirely of white marble. Strange to say, how- 
ever, though vast sums of money were spent in 
search, no other gold of any amount was ever 
taken from this region, and the city has been de- 
populated and deserted. All enthusiasm was 
gone, as soon as the gold was exhausted. 

We live in a world where we see the relics of 
many deserted enthusiasms. But there would 
be another deserted enthusiasm to put on 



THE VITAL FORCE 21 

record, if it should come to be the commonly 
accepted belief, that the nugget of pure gold, 
which we find in the person of Christ, was not 
quarried from an inexhaustible mine! No mat- 
ter what beautiful structures of pure white mar- 
ble are built on the strength of the prospect ; no 
matter how the city expands and multiplies and 
gleams with the splendor of cathedral spire and 
temple dome; no matter that the centuries have 
come and gone in which there has been no abate- 
ment or cessation of interest in the search; no 
matter, I say, what has been achieved on the 
strength of the prospect. Let it be understood 
that the prospect is not grounded in reality, that 
our gold mine is not inexhaustible, and our 
beautiful city, reared by Christian hands, will 
quickly be depopulated and deserted. Enthu- 
siasm for Christ ends, when it is discovered we 
have not an inexhaustible Christ. 

The central principle of Christianity is the 
person of its Founder. But Christianity is the 
religion of the present hour. What sort of a 
Being must he be, who is the heart and soul of 
Christianity to-day? He is one whose great- 
ness must ever and always be the surprise of the 
centuries; the last hours of time must have for 



22 THE LIVING CHRIST 

their romance the fresh unveilings of his 
majesty; and the perpetual delight of the ever- 
lasting future must be the ever grander dis- 
covery of his significance. After humanity has 
learned of him, to the limit of its growing capac- 
ity, the residue of his being will still be infinite. 
This is the inexhaustible Christ; and he can 
evoke a never-ending enthusiasm. This is the 
living Christ, that answers to the demand for a 
vital force in pulpit and pew. 

Thus Jesus Christ is a great deal more to us 
than a remote and external figure in history. 
He is still a living person in the closest possible 
relation to us. He is a person who, while hu- 
man, has yet, in virtue of his divinity, access in- 
to the innermost parts of our being, into the 
very roots of our personality. Alive in heaven, 
he is thus alive in us, dwelling in us, by the 
Spirit whom he hath given us. His Spirit is 
made our spirit; his life is poured into ours. 
'The life eternal is in the Son." "He that hath 
the Son hath the life." Our eternal life is 
rooted, grafted, embodied into the Son. And 
this, in a sense that a Christ not in us is the 
same thing as a Christ not ours. This truth of 
the immanence of Jesus Christ, by the Spirit, in 



THE VITAL FORCE 23 

the heart of the believer, is the vital force in 
preacher and hearer, that sustains and extends 
the kingdom of God in the world. Any other 
than an immanent Christ would leave the soul 
to its own resources, and extinguish "the hope of 
glory" which is declared to be "Christ in us." 

I am aware it might be said that, while 
Christ's work ended at the cross, nevertheless 
he put us in possession of a knowledge of God 
which can satisfy all the demands of .an imma- 
nent deity. Here we forget, that, when we lose 
the living Christ we lose the living God. What- 
ever enfeebles the hold of Christ on the world 
now, relaxes its sense of God. If the assump- 
tion be that there is nothing but a historic 
Christ, then we have been receding from him 
for two thousand years; we are escaping from 
him. If Christ grow dim and distant, the sense 
of a living God fades from the soul, and the 
power of God decays from life. Christ is 
needed, to-day, for a living God — for the reality 
of a living God. Faith in Christ keeps alive our 
belief in God. Christ did not come to earth to 
perform certain preliminaries of salvation, and 
then pass into nothingness, after having satis- 
fied the conditions. On this supposition, we 



24 THE LIVING CHRIST 

should have in him neither the salvation nor re- 
demption that we need. As one has said, "We 
need a living Redeemer to take each one of us 
to God, to be for every one, to-day, all that he 
could have been upon earth to any one, in the 
great yesterday, and to be forever what he is to- 
day/' ^ 

Thus it is that we have an immanent Christ. 
His relation to us is not ideal but real; so that, 
when we speak to Christ, we are not speaking 
into the air ; but, dwelling in us, he answers us, 
gives us peace of conscience, strength for suf- 
fering and for righteousness, and the immediate 
knowledge of God. 

For the pulpit to be a power in our day, it 
must emphasize the objective character of 
Christ's work, and the reality of our relations 
to him. If there is a subjective aspect of re- 
ligion that needs recognition, it is even more 
essential not to forget its objective, divine basis. 
Religion is not merely the play of man's spirit- 
ual nature within himself. There may be a 
measure of value in this, for the religious life; 
but the tendency to lay stress on this alone, is- 
sues in a one-sided subjectivism, which can never 
do justice to the great Biblical truths of revela- 



THE VITAL FORCE 25 

tion and redemption, nor create a vital force 
that subdues and conquers the innate corruption 
of the human heart. It needs to be preached 
first, last, and always, that religion is a divine 
process, and that, apart from Christ, we "can 
do nothing." The words, "without me ye can 
do nothing/' mean that he is the Author of 
all that is true and good and beautiful in human 
life ; that, apart from him, love, joy, peace, long- 
suffering, kindness, beneficence, faithfulness, do 
not exist ; that he is the fount and inspiration of 
all the moral forces in the world ; that, if good- 
ness is discovered anywhere on the face of the 
earth, at any time, or in any place, he has 
prompted and encouraged it; that he stands at 
the door of every human heart and knocks, and, 
on faintest recognition of him, he enters and 
sets up the beginnings of his kingdom; that he 
dwells in every longing for a better life, and lives 
in every earnest purpose for truth and righteous- 
ness. We are to think of the great movements 
of the ages as processes of his Spirit, and the 
great enterprises of education and reform, of 
charity and beneficence, which characterize our 
time, as among the fruits of those divine in- 
fluences, which, mysteriously, penetrate our life 



26 THE LIVING CHRIST 

from God in Christ. We are to believe that 
these mighty tides of spiritual power will con- 
tinue to rise and sweep over the world, until 
there is fulfillment of the promise that the 
kingdoms of this world shall become, the king- 
doms of our Lord and his Christ. "Without 
me ye can do nothing!" This characterization 
is not hyperbole ; it fits the truth and reality of 
things. 

We talk about the improvements in society 
and the advances of civilization. How shall we 
explain these changes that are carrying the 
world forward in lines of progress? I have 
stood upon the shore of the Bay of Fundy and 
watched the rushing tide as it poured in from 
the ocean, covering all the pools and stagnant 
waters and shaggy boulders in the bed of the 
harbor, rising in arching masses of crystal splen- 
dor, until the largest ship that sails the ocean 
could ride, securely, upon that heaving, billowy 
flood. How shall we explain the sweeping in 
and lifting up of these watery hosts? By the 
grip and pull of the vast orb of night. Without 
that orb there would not be a tidal wave on the 
shore of any sea on the face of our globe. 
How shall we explain that tidal wave of prog- 



THE VITAL FORCE 27 

ress which is lifting society, slowly but surely, 
into higher and nobler forms of civilization? 
What is the dynamic that grips and pulls and 
makes for righteousness? There is a vast orb 
of moral and spiritual power, and all the paths 
of progress are converging toward that majestic 
figure which once stood on Olivet, bidding his 
followers go forth and disciple the world, and 
declaring, on another occasion that, "if I be lifted 
up from the earth, I will draw all men unto me." 
This is the living Christ, at work, redeeming the 
world that he died to save ! 

But how is the living Christ to become a vital 
force in the pew? How are we to reach the 
masses? We can't do much for the pew, if there 
is nobody in it ! The masses belong in the pew, 
and ought to be found there. How can they be 
gotten there, how can they be reached? that is 
the question. Now, whether men can be reached 
depends, I think, upon what we attempt to 
reach them with. I do not think that much suc- 
cess is gained in endeavoring to reach the pew 
with "pink teas/' or with preaching whose 
main object is entertainment and a display of 
ingenuity in the treatment of texts. We are 
sometimes told to "Preach the Gospel/' the 



28 THE LIVING CHRIST 

meaning of which is not always definite. Some 
men have curious notions of what constitutes 
the "gospel." I tell you, we must have the liv- 
ing Christ to preach, if our religion is to be a 
vital force in the pew. But a living Christ who 
only ruled his kingdom in the unseen, by general 
laws, is not sufficient for our need. A living 
Christ, personal to the man in the pew, is the 
Saviour to be preached ! What the man in the 
pew needs to know most, is, that the living 
Christ is his Saviour, in his situation, his needs, 
his loves, his shames, his sins. He needs to un- 
derstand that the Saviour not only lives but min- 
gles in his life ; that the Christ is not so handi- 
capped by general laws that he cannot change 
himself to the need of a man's soul. He must be 
made to feel that he has not only the risen 
Christ, but the returned Christ; not only the 
historic Christ, but the spiritual, the intimate 
Christ of the soul in its daily conflicts. 

Let the living Christ be preached in all the 
length and breadth and depth of meaning, which 
really belongs to such a being, and he will be- 
come, indeed, a vital force in the pew, begetting 
a living faith, which shall wear the lineaments of 
the "inward Christ." 



THE VITAL FORCE 29 

The final thought on this subject is best ex- 
pressed in the words that came to John the 
Revelator as he fell at the feet of his exalted 
Lord, who, laying his right hand upon the pros- 
trate and trembling disciple, said : 'Tear not ; I 
am the first and the last, and the Living one; 
and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for 
evermore." 



BIBLE HUMOR 



BIBLE HUMOR 

The Bible is regarded as such a serious 
book, that many have the impression, it 
would be quite out of place to suppose that 
there is anything in it bordering on the humor- 
ous. As a matter of fact, there is not a book 
in the world that presents more humorous sit- 
uations than the Bible. Indeed, it cannot be 
appreciated or understood without bringing to 
its study a sense of humor. It is one of 
the signs of progress in theological dis- 
cussion, that this element in our nature is get- 
ting recognition as of high importance for 
faith. 

A recent writer, who is commanding wide at- 
tention in the theological world, has lately said 
"that the growth of humor may well be re- 
garded with religious interest ; for it is a happy 
sign of increasing mental health and reasonable- 
ness." He further says "that it is a force for 
truth and beauty and goodness. Religion and 
33 



34 THE LIVING CHRIST 

art and character, of the highest order, are in- 
conceivable without humor." 

What is the use of humor in its best form? 
What is its office? It is an unerring discoverer 
of false magnitudes, the revealer of bad perspec- 
tive. It is also the sense of incongruity. Con- 
ceit, for example, is occasioned by bad perspec- 
tive. Paul tells us that we ought to esteem 
others better than ourselves. But it is possible 
for a man to reverse this order of personal con- 
sideration and think of himself more highly 
than he ought to think. He entertains the 
geocentric mood, and seems to himself to be at 
the heart of things. The spot where he stands 
is the center of the circle formed by the horizon, 
and the zenith of the sky is directly over his 
head. Now here is involved a false magni- 
tude, and a perspective that is really ludicrous. 
When a man thinks that he is the whole thing, 
how is such conceit to be removed? It is the 
office of humor to set him aright and adjust his 
bad perspective. A prominent writer made a 
statement to this effect. When I was quite a 
young man, I thought myself perfectly compe- 
tent to pass sentence upon the universe. But 
as I grew older, painful doubts of my infalli- 



BIBLE HUMOR 35 

bility sprang up within myself ; and these doubts 
were encouraged by the persons with whom I 
conversed. This is like the saying of another, 
that there comes a time when a man suspects 
himself a fool; and this is followed by another 
period, when he knows it. 

Education renders a great service in reducing 
false magnitudes and in removing bad perspec- 
tive. A young man goes to college or the uni- 
versity and begins to brag and put on airs, and 
at once he becomes the laughing-stock of all the 
students. All conceit is soon taken out of him. 
It is the humor of the thing that does it. A 
person cannot move among his peers, and set 
himself up as a superlative magnitude, without 
stirring the risibilities. 

It has been said, that probably no wise man 
has ever been able to estimate his debt to hu- 
mor ; and it is more than probable that no man 
became wise without the aid of the world's hu- 
mor. It is humor that gives us the sense of in- 
congruity. 

Our colored brethren have the habit of call- 
ing themselves by great names, such as appear 
in American history. It is George Washington 
this, and Abraham Lincoln that. It is some- 



36 . THE LIVING CHRIST 

what humorous to find such a name attached to 
a colored individual who* is lazy and shiftless, 
and lives on the chickens which he borrowed 
without asking. 

Canon Liddon tells the story of a certain 
minister in England, who, in behalf of Queen 
Victoria, and in her presence, offered this 
prayer: "Grant that as she grows to be an old 
woman, she may be made a new man ; and that, 
in all righteous causes, she may go forth before 
her people, like a he-goat on the mountains !" 
A man with any humor in his nature, any sense 
of incongruity, would not mix things up in that 
way! 

Why is it that certain ideas about the universe 
fail in securing general assent? There is no 
doubt that the sense of humor has much to do 
about it. Here is atheism, for example. Why 
are there so few people that ever give their as- 
sent to this doctrine? It is owing, in a large 
degree, to the fact that most men have some 
measure of sanity in the perspective of things. 
Atheism says, there is no thought or mind be- 
hind the framework of the universe, there is no 
God. Everything just happened to be as it is. 
Now, to assume that universal order can come 



BIBLE HUMOR 37 

from universal disorder and confusion, or that 
an intelligible world, with all its laws and forces, 
as exact in their working as a mathematical 
demonstration, has risen from a source which 
has neither thought or a directing will, is, as it 
has been called, "the superlative speculative 
joke." Atheism, to any person gifted with a 
sense of humor, is just as credible as would be 
the supposition that nothing more is needed for 
the production of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey 
than to keep tossing the Greek alphabet in the 
air. Great epics are not produced in that way. 
Where there is order, there is an orderer ; where 
there is law there is a lawgiver; where there is 
thought there is a thinker. An intelligible 
world is not the offspring of confusion. We re- 
ject atheism, in part at least, because it is ridicu- 
lous ! Its whole scheme is transfixed by a shaft 
of humor. If a man should come to us and say 
that he was an atheist, we would laugh, if the 
case were not so pathetic. 

No one ever had the sense of humor in greater 
degree than Jesus himself. It was part of his 
nature, because he was the most intellectually 
sane and reasonable Person that the world ever 
knew. His humor was not of the boisterous 



38 THE LIVING CHRIST 

kind ; it did not find expression in jokes and tri- 
fling witticisms ; it was always keen, delicate ; 
it was of the essence and finest life of reason. 
It had a piercing intellectuality, that could per- 
forate a sham or transfix a folly. "Why be- 
holdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's 
eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine 
own eye ? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, 
Let me cast out the mote out of thine eye ; and 
lo, the beam is in thine own eye ?" There would 
be nothing out of place in smiling at these 
words of the great Teacher ; for there is humor 
in them. Just examine the figures employed. 
What is a mote? It is about the smallest thing 
imaginable ; it may be a bit of dust, or chaff, or 
a speck of cinder blown in through the car win- 
dow. But even the minutest particle in the eye 
is enough to cause some irritation. But what 
is the beam? It is just what it purports to be ; it 
is a beam, a joist, a great big sliver, which one 
does not have to hunt to find ; there' it is, plain, 
visible, something that you can grasp with both 
hands. Now what do we see? Why this man, 
with a great big sliver in his eye, which nearly 
blinds him, comes up to his brother, who has a 
mote in his eye, and begins to prod him about 



BIBLE HUMOR 39 

it. "Why, sir, there is something the matter 
with your eye ! It has a speck in it ; there are 
signs of inflammation; you have a bad eye, a 
very bad eye, and you ought not to be around 
in respectable company, thus disfigured, mar- 
ring the pleasure and comfort of other people !" 
And it is this man with a beam or stake in his 
own eye, who is engaged in all this savage criti- 
cism concerning another, whose trouble would 
be scarcely noticeable if some one were not 
searching for specks in the eye. Everything 
in this lesson turns on the humor of the thing. 
It is simply ridiculous ! 

How could our Lord have shown the absurd- 
ity of our setting ourselves up as critics of other 
people, while we at the same time are guilty of 
like sins, or others, it may be, of a worse nature, 
better than by the method of humor? The per- 
son who is constantly passing judgment on 
other people, and trying to make out a case 
against them, is not only proving that he has a 
stake in his own eye, but is also exhibiting him- 
self in the role of the ridiculous. Such conduct 
is funny ; and we hardly know whether to laugh 
or cry. The incongruity is laughable ; but the 
critic's apparent unconsciousness of his own in- 



40 THE LIVING CHRIST 

sincerity and hypocrisy, is pathetic. No person 
is sincere and honest, who is harsh and severe 
in judging the conduct of others. It is the pur- 
est saint that is the most lenient and gentle in 
his judgments, and finds the most excuses for 
the weaknesses and short-comings of his neigh- 
bors. His sense of humor plays a considerable 
part in making him charitable and sympathetic. 
In many of the parables of Jesus there is 
evidence of humor, although their matter is so 
serious that this feature is often overlooked. 
Take this parable, for example : "The ground of 
a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: and 
he reasoned within himself, saying, What shall 
I do, because I have not where to bestow my 
fruits? And he said, This will I do : I will pull 
down my barns, and build greater; and there 
will I bestow all my corn and my goods. And I 
will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods 
laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, 
drink, be merry. But God said unto him, Thou 
foolish one, this night is thy soul required of 
thee ; and the things which thou hast prepared, 
whose shall they be?" Here is humor in the 
sense of bad perspective. , Here is a man who 
has more than he knows what to do with. His 



BIBLE HUMOR 41 

barns are full; his cellar is full; his garret is full; 
every building on the premises is full to burst- 
ing. Now we see this man worrying the life out 
of him to discover what he can do next. Great 
beads of perspiration stand on his face, as he 
meditates how he can find room for his abound- 
ing superfluity of wealth! At last an idea 
strikes him ! He has hit upon something, now, 
that will entirely relieve the situation ! I know 
what I will do 1 , he says ; I will tear down the old 
barns and build bigger; then I can say to my- 
self, I am all right, and can take my ease and 
be merry! Now the humor of the situation 
crops out at two points in the parable. The 
man had, it may be, a hundred times more 
wealth than he had any personal use for. But 
there did not come even a suggestion to his 
mind that a, portion of his goods might be em- 
ployed for the benefit of others. The poor and 
needy were all about him; the widows and 
orphans were crying for bread ; but these made 
no appeals to him; his supreme concern was 
storage, and more storage, and in such cases it 
always turns out to be "cold storage/' 

The humor of the thing consisted in the fact 
that he did not see that the path of happiness lay 



42 THE LIVING CHRIST 

in the direction of human kindness and benevo- 
lence. He was saying to himself, O I want to 
be happy ; I want to be at my ease ; I want to be 
merry ; and the laughable thing about it was his 
thought that all this could be gained by having 
bigger barns ! Then there was a grim humor 
in the fact that he was probably an old man, and 
could not live long, any way. He might not 
live a year; possibly death would require his 
soul that very night. But he had never thought 
of that. He had never put the question to him- 
self ; "After I am gone, the things which I have 
prepared, whose shall they be?" He had not 
thought of the lively times the heirs would have, 
in getting the stuff out of the barns and dis- 
tributing it ! It was not in his mind that a little 
wise distribution before death would save a 
heap of trouble. 

The miserly man is a comical man; comical, 
not in his speech, but in his action. Of course 
he is not aware that he has a funny way of liv- 
ing ; he thinks there is infinite wisdom in getting 
wealth, and then keeping it intact. A man is 
devoid of humor, who, after securing much of 
this world's goods, hugs it, clasps it with an iron 
grip, parting with as little of it as possible, and 



BIBLE HUMOR 43 

then imagining that he is on the road to happi- 
ness. It is bad perspective. His view is nar- 
row and circumscribed. He is like one who 
supposes the mill-pond to be the ocean ! 

The man who gives pennies for missions and 
works of benevolence, and dollars for luxuries 
and amusements, lacks the sense of humor. It 
is ridiculous. That he does not recognize the 
humor involved, shows that he has not that fine 
sense which is alive to bad perspective. 

Let us look, for a moment, at one other para- 
ble, which illustrates how a vein of humor often 
runs through Christ's teaching. It is the para- 
ble of the Prodigal Son. In reading this para- 
ble, it never occurs to us, probably, that there 
is a humorous side to the story. There is so 
much that is sad and pathetic in it, that its fine 
shade of humor is not easily distinguished. But 
it is there ; and it is one of the most important 
features of the parable. Let us examine the 
situation. The younger of two sons, living 
in a home where every need and comfort were 
provided by the hand of a kind and loving 
father, becomes dissatisfied with the conditions, 
which were the best a grateful son could desire, 
and requests that his portion of the inheritance 



44 THE LIVING CHRIST 

be divided unto him, that he may start out and 
follow his own bent and inclination. He must 
be free to do as he pleases, that he may make 
the most of life. 

With all his possessions, he took his journey 
into a far country. Well, what did he do when 
he got far away from the care, protection and 
loving counsel of his father? Like a fool, he 
wasted his substance in riotous living. After 
he had spent his money in debauchery, what 
then? There was a famine in the land, and he 
began to be in want. Did he start immediately 
for home, under the stress of pinching hunger, 
where there was bread enough and to spare? 
Not at all ; he went and joined himself to a citi- 
zen of that country, who sent him into the field 
to feed swine ! And there he was in such straits 
that he would gladly have been filled with the 
husks that the swine did eat ; but there was no 
one to offer him so much as a pod or husk. 
Now there comes a sudden turn in the history 
of that young man. The pregnant statement 
is, that he CAME TO HIMSELF! All at once 
he began to think of the hired servants of his 
father, who had all they wanted to eat and more, 
while he was perishing with hunger. He came 



BIBLE HUMOR 45 

to' himself! In that expression is the element 
of humor. What does it signify? It means 
that he began to have mental sanity and reason- 
ableness. We are to) remember that humor in 
its higher forms represents the finest and richest 
quality of reason and common sense. It is see- 
ing things as they are, and is keenly sensitive to 
incongruities and the inappropriateness of con- 
ditions. Suddenly that young man was struck 
with the ridiculousness of his situation. Here 
I am, he thought, living on pods and husks, just 
as though there were nothing better for me! 
I have been playing the role of the "fast young 
man," and painting everything red, and I 
thought it was very smart, and that I was having 
a rattling good time ; but I have discovered that 
the laugh comes on the other side. The butt 
of ridicule turns out to be myself. I am the 
laughing-stock, and not the folks at home, as I 
foolishly imagined ! 

Many a man would come to himself if he 
recognized the humor of his situation. 

What is it to be a Christian? It is to be men- 
tally sane and reasonable. It is to stand plumb 
with the realities of things. The great reality 
of this world is Christ, "the way, the truth, and 



46 THE LIVING CHRIST 

the life," a fact so patent that we may say the 
civilized world accepts it. See, now, the incon- 
gruity in adopting some other way of living, 
which conflicts, or is contrary to, the way of 
Christ. I ask some one what he is living for, 
and he answers, I am living to be richer ; I ami 
tearing down the old barns and building bigger. 
I ask again, and the answer comes, I am living 
to enjoy the luxuries and amusements of the 
world. Why, I would go ten miles to play a 
game of whist, when I would not go two blocks 
to worship God in his sanctuary. I take a jolly 
view of things. I suppose that religion is a 
great concern, but it does not concern me very 
much. Has that man come to himself? Does 
he see the humor of his position? Does he take 
in the ridiculousness of making his little per- 
spective of selfish gratification answer for the 
grand perspective which religion opens out be- 
fore us? Does he understand that he is en- 
gaged in acting a farce, or a low comedy? How 
funny some people would seem to themselves, 
if, in some way, the real humor of their lives 
would dawn upon them! 

You ask me why Christianity will live and 
never grow old and ever remain the supreme 



BIBLE HUMOR 47 

religion of the world. I will tell you : you can- 
not laugh it down; the laugh is on the other 
side. If Christianity could not stand the humor 
of the world, it could not maintain itself. The 
religion of Christ has been the object of ridi- 
cule; but such ridicule has always been 
accomplished by caricature and misrepre- 
sentation. A man has to lie about it, before he 
can make fun of it. Men cannot raise a laugh 
for the real thing. You cannot make fun of 
mental sanity and absolute reasonableness. 
Christ is the real Master of the world ; and he is 
seen to be such so clearly, that the rankest infidel 
shrinks from making a humorous suggestion 
concerning him. Men sometimes laugh at the 
inconsistencies of Christians, and the imperfec- 
tions of the Church, but they cannot laugh at 
Christ. It is when we choose to live some other 
way than he would have us live that the laugh 
comes in. It is when we choose to journey into 
a far country and live on the husks of the world 
that we appear ridiculous. It is then that we 
are beside ourselves ; it is then that we are not 
our true selves ; it is then that we spend money 
for that which is not bread, and our labor for 
that which satisfieth not. 



MIRACLES 

FROM THE STANDPOINT OF TO-DAY 



MIRACLES 

FROM THE STANDPOINT OF TO-DAY 

I say "to-day," for miracles have a different 
standing in Christian thought from what they 
had in a not very remote past. Miracles as- 
sume a different aspect to us, at the present 
time, in view of the fact that we entertain a 
changed conception of the universe and of 
God's relation to it. We say that "God is over 
all," that he is greater than the universe, that he 
transcends it; but we also say that "God is in 
all;" that is, he is immanent in his works, and 
not to be considered as absent from them. 
Consider God as having only the one relation of 
being "over all," and not that of being "in all," 
and the miracle has not the same standing as 
when both relations are recognized. Formerly, 
theological discussion was carried on in regard 
to miracles on the basis of "God over all," with 
no emphasis on the fact that he is in all. What 
51 



52 THE LIVING CHRIST 

was nature, according to- this view? It was a 
closed, mechanical system, running itself, modi- 
fied only by interference or irruption from with- 
out. That is, God made nature as a sort of 
mechanism, and introduced into it certain forces 
which were self-regulating and self-propelling, 
thus enabling it to go of itself. Whatever took 
place within this mechanism was called "natu- 
ral ;" and the supernatural, in order to have any- 
thing to do with this closed circuit of nature, 
had to break in, as a meddling, anarchic force. 
In this case, the natural and the supernatural 
were mutually exclusive, and, we might say, an- 
tagonistic. As a matter of course, anything 
called supernatural evoked hostility. Theo- 
logians had a hard time, in the past, attempting 
to defend miracles with this conception of the 
relation of God to nature. Infidels said, "Here is 
nature, which, according to your own teaching, 
is a kind of machine made in the beginning, per- 
fect and complete, and, when fairly launched, 
was capable of running itself." Now, when a 
miracle was to be wrought, what had to be done? 
Some part of the machine had to be smashed, in 
order to make an opening for the manifestation 
of the supernatural; for the supernatural was 



MIRACLES 53 

supposed to be found always outside and be- 
yond the machine, or the sphere of nature. 
Hence a miracle involved the violation of the 
laws of nature, so called. A man of the rational 
and unbelieving kind could easily say, I do not 
believe that God, in order to work a miracle, 
would engage to smash any part of the ma- 
chine, or violate his own laws, which he was at 
such pains to establish. This view of nature 
has been set aside by scholars and theologians. 
Nature is no longer regarded as a machine, with 
power of self-running. Nature runs; but it 
runs by that same energy that made it in the 
first place. 

Men have entertained schemes for perpetual 
motion; but they never came to anything and 
never will, simply for the reason that there can- 
not be motion without a cause to produce it. 
Omnipotence itself cannot work the scheme of 
perpetual motion. If he could, then we should 
have an effect without a cause, and this would 
involve an absurdity. You might as well say 
that God can make two and two, five, as to say 
that God can furnish perpetual motion with no 
power behind it. 

Scientists teach to-day, that not only all the 



54 THE LIVING CHRIST 

worlds in space are in motion, but that every 
particle of matter, here and everywhere, is in 
motion. Perpetual motion requires a perpet- 
ual cause, and that cause is God; for he is not 
simply over all, but in all! Hence, the super- 
natural is not something entirely outside, but 
inside of nature, as well. 

In a word, we have come upon the concep- 
tion that the supernatural is natural, and the 
natural, supernatural. That is, the natural roots 
itself in the supernatural, and the supernatural 
manifests itself in the orderly forms and methods 
of experience. We speak of the principle of 
gravitation as a natural law. It is natural be- 
cause it is a common, every-day experience ; and 
it is a law only in the sense of being a constant 
method of operation. But it is supernatural 
also; because the divine causality is behind it, 
and keeps its hand upon it, supports and main- 
tains it. We cannot think of nature keeping on 
its course a moment without the upholding 
hand of God. 

The old prophets and singers were accus- 
tomed to speak of God as doing all things that 
take place in nature. "He covereth the heaven 
with clouds, he prepareth rain for the earth, he 



MIRACLES 55 

maketh grass to grow upon the mountains 

He giveth snow like wool ; he scattereth the hoar 
frost like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like 
morsels : who can stand before his cold?" This 
is no longer extravagance, according to the pres- 
ent conception of God's relation to nature. We 
no longer think of God as apart from his works, 
but in them, as the fountain and spring of all 
their movements. The supernatural is involved 
in the growth of every flower, in the running of 
every stream, in the breath of every wind. With 
this view, what about miracles? They are no 
more divinely wrought than any natural event 
whatever. We cannot say, God performs mir- 
acles, and nature does everything else. For the 
performance, whatever it is, is a divine per- 
formance. 

The question might be asked, then, How can 
we distinguish between what we call a natural 
event and one that is miraculous? We might an- 
swer that a natural event is one that takes place 
according to the order of nature, as we under- 
stand it ; and a miraculous event is one that is a 
departure from the order of nature, as we under- 
stand it. The mere naturalist, who claims that 
nature is the whole thing, tells us that there can- 



56 THE LIVING CHRIST 

not be any departure from the order of nature, 
and, consequently, a miracle is an impossibility. 
He is right, if we admit his supposition that na- 
ture is the whole thing, meaning, by nature, the 
material world. What do we mean by the de- 
parture from the order of nature? If we mean 
the production of something which nature, left 
to herself, would not produce, then we say that 
this man, who is frightened at the very sugges- 
tion of a miracle, is a witness of miracles in 
countless instances. 

The order of nature is constantly being inter- 
rupted by human volitions. When the pioneers 
came to this region, they found a wilderness 
which the woodman's ax had not disturbed. 
They found swamps and gullies, and a soil which 
never had been stirred by spade or plow. In 
those days nature was having her own way; 
everything was according to her own ordering. 
And, if left to herself, she would have kept on 
producing forests and swamps and gullies. Cer- 
tainly, if left to herself, she would not have pro- 
duced New York, Chicago and St. Louis as we 
have them to-day. Here is an effect that can- 
not be deduced from an antecedent state of 
physical nature ; it is a departure from the order 



MIRACLES 57 

of nature, and involves interference, interpola- 
tion, interjection from without, the very thing 
that scandalizes the naturalist, who insists that 
there can never be any departure from the order 
of nature. But here is the departure, right be- 
fore his eyes. 

Nature, left to herself, does not build bridges, 
factories, stores, electric railways, expositions. 
How do they come into existence? They are 
the product of the human will. Man has power 
to interfere with the order of nature and pro- 
duce results which nature herself could not. 
On this account, Horace Bushnell, in his great 
work "Nature and Supernatural/ , reckoned man 
and all his works as belonging to the supernat- 
ural. He said, man is a supernatural being, 
that is, a being above nature in some degree, be- 
cause he can manipulate nature, introduce 
causes which she does not possess and make 
her do things which she would not do if left to 
herself. Hence, when the naturalist says there 
can be no miracle, because there can be no de- 
parture from the order of nature, he is flying in 
the face of patent facts which he witnesses 
every day. 

If man can perform acts that are supernat- 



58 THE LIVING CHRIST 

ural, why cannot God do as much — even super- 
natural acts that transcend the ability of man? 
We can conceive of conditions when a miracle 
would be an impossibility. If God did not exist 
there could be no miracle. An atheistic scheme 
of things could not yield a miracle. There 
might be strange happenings, but nothing that 
could be called miraculous. 

Then again, in order to have a miracle there 
must be an order of nature. For if there is no 
order, there can be no departure. Suppose 
everything 3 in nature was at haphazard, with no 
method of calculation of what would be, no cer- 
tainty about any occurrence; that we would 
simply have to wait and see what would happen. 
In such an arrangement there could be no 
recognizable miracle. Everything that took 
place would be a surprise, at least until we got 
used to being surprised. Order in nature is 
the very thing that gives to a miracle its mean- 
ing. What is science doing? It is engaged in 
discovering that order ; this is its problem, this 
its work. 

It is sometimes said that science has demon- 
strated the impossibility of miracles, and has 
shown that miracles have never occurred. 



MIRACLES 59 

Now observe that science has nothing to do 
with the subject of miracles, to show whether 
they are possible or impossible; these are en- 
tirely beyond and outside of its province. Let 
me tell you what science has proved. It has 
proved, beyond controversy, that the universe is 
not chaos and not governed by chance. Science, 
as such, is not opposed to a belief in miracles ; 
but it is opposed to a belief in disorder and con- 
fusion. Science, I say, is engaged in discover- 
ing the order of nature, and it finds it every- 
where. Have you thought what it means to 
say that this universe is one where order reigns? 
It is one of the strongest proofs of the existence 
of God. Some people seem to think that we 
should not know that God is present in the uni- 
verse unless he interposes by a miracle of some 
kind. Exceptional acts, like miracles, are not 
the chief proofs of his being. The highest evi- 
dence of his presence in the universe is proved 
by the steady order and unfolding of creation, 
which would commend him to his creatures if 
no miracle had ever been wrought. 

The fact that God is a being of order and not 
disorder, raises a presumption against miracles, 
which can be overcome only by showing an 



60 THE LIVING CHRIST 

adequate reason for their performance. God 
will never do an unusual thing, unless there is 
good reason for it. Many of the miracles, so 
called, in the Old Testament, seem to be 
wrought along the natural order of things; for 
example, the miracle of the plague of locusts, 
in Egypt. If we had been there, with our pres- 
ent notion of the universe, it would not have 
seemed so strange to us, as the language used 
might lead us to> suspect. It is probable that 
the plague of locusts in Egypt would not have 
looked very different to us from a plague of 
grasshoppers in Kansas. That is, we might not 
have called it a miracle at all. 

Whether there is a presumption in favor of 
miracles depends upon the meaning we ascribe to 
the world and life. Suppose we say that God 
made the world for physical ends ; that spiritual 
interests are of no concern to him; that he 
cares less for man than for his material environ- 
ment. With such a meaning, given to the 
world and life, no intelligent man would believe 
in miracles. We cannot believe that God would 
work a miracle in behalf of nature ; nature could 
not appreciate any special work done for it by 
the Almighty. But suppose nature, in the di- 



MIRACLES 61 

vine thought, is meant to serve moral and relig- 
ious ends; that spiritual interests are the su- 
preme concern of God, and that man is the su- 
preme culmination of his work in this world, 
since he is an image of his Maker. With such 
a conception of the world and life, there would 
be no inherent difficulty in believing in a mira- 
cle, if spiritual exigencies demanded it. 

The physical and mechanical interpretation of 
the world is fast passing away, while the per- 
sonal and moral interpretation of it is in the as- 
cendency. That is, not only Christianity but 
philosophy now holds that the world was made 
for man, not man for the world. Living in such 
a world, God would do something special, some- 
thing out of the ordinary course, if the spiritual 
necessities of man required it. 

We should understand, however, that Chris- 
tian miracles must never be judged in isolation, 
but always in connection with the system of 
which they form a part. We are never to think 
of a miracle as an abstract wonder, connected 
with nothing and leading to nothing, a wonder 
that would, always, be incredible and worthless. 

Professor Huxley once criticized a belief in 
miracles, by saying, "If we were told that, many 



62 THE LIVING CHRIST 

years ago, a centaur was seen trotting down 
Piccadilly, in London, it would simply be in- 
credible, and no one ought to believe it I" Hux- 
ley was right ; no< one ought to* believe such 
a story. Why? Because it was connected with 
nothing, and led to nothing. What bearing 
had a centaur, trotting down Piccadilly, 
on the moral and spiritual welfare of 
man? The very idea of Christianity is, that God 
is revealing himself to man and, if any miracu- 
lous event occurs, it will have this end in view. 
The miracle must fit into the system by which 
God is making himself known to men, and be 
harmonious with it, and be seen to further the 
aim of the system, in order to justify a belief in 
it. Miracles, apart from the system with which 
they are connected, would be empty and 
worthless; but, when they become a 
fitting complement and setting in the system, 
they are a part of a worthy and magnificent 
whole. 

Men sometimes ask, "What should we think, 
if such events as are recorded in the New Testa- 
ment were recurring to-day?" That would be, 
to break them from their connection, which 
gives them their meaning, and would substitute 



MIRACLES 63 

a fictitious for a historical problem. In other 
words, such miracles are not needed now; they 
would be a sort of superfluity; the revelation 
has been made and there is no need of a repe- 
tition. Do we need a miracle to-day, to show 
us that God is love? Has he not made himself 
known, already, as such a being? 

Who needs a miraculous demonstration to 
verify the fact that God is our Father and has a 
loving interest in us all? Are we not already 
assured of it? Did not Jesus say, "I and my 
Father are one?" Why should men ask for 
miracles to demonstrate what has already been 
demonstrated? 

This, then, is the way the matter stands. God 
has been revealing himself to men, in a long, his- 
torical movement. Ages ago he began to 
make himself known to men, as they could ap- 
preciate and understand him. The process was 
slow, for, in the heart of man were seeds of evil, 
which yielded corrupt thoughts and desires. 
But, when the time was ripe, and everything 
ready for a full and complete revelation of him- 
self, he sent forth, his Son and gave him to the 
world as the final expression of himself. The 
stupendous miracle of all time was the coming 



64 THE LIVING CHRIST 

of Jesus Christ into this world. Here was a de- 
parture from the order of nature. Natural laws 
cannot account for him ; the civilization of his 
day cannot account for him; the education of 
his time cannot account for him; the ideals of 
the past cannot account for him. He had ideals 
of his own, as transcendent as the light of the sun 
beyond the dimmest star: he was without sin, 
and without those defects which are found in 
every common man ; he was perfect in word and 
thought and deed ; he was here to help and save 
man; he was the culmination of that system of 
revelation which God was making to the world ; 
he was the divine manifested in the flesh. 

Now, when I read in the Gospels that! he did 
some things that were miraculous, I am not sur- 
prised. I should have been surprised if he had 
done nothing but what ordinary men could do. 
Supernatural works came as gracefully from his 
hands as eloquence from the lips of Demos- 
thenes. And they all contributed to his mis- 
sion. They were not magical performances. 
They were not the artifices of a strolling for- 
tune-teller, nor the tricks of a necromancer. 
They were an essential feature of those works 
which the Father gave him to accomplish; so 



MIRACLES 65 

that the very works that he did, whether mirac- 
ulous or otherwise, bore witness of him that the 
Father sent him. In a word, the miracles he 
wrought were always helpful, faith-inspiring, 
suggesting, to the minds of men, his divine call- 
ing as revealing the Father's infinite interest and 
love for humanity. 

Hence we believe in the miracles of Jesus, 
because they were bound up with a system of 
religious truth which would have been insuffi- 
cient and incomplete without them. Chris- 
tianity, without the miracles of the Advent and 
the Resurrection, would not be Christianity. It 
would be emptied of those events that put the 
seal of divinity upon it, and make it the universal 
religion of the world. We cease to expect 
miracles, to-day, for their chief end is gained; 
and this is only to do justice to the greatness of 
that end. To expect them, now, would simply 
indicate that we do not appreciate the truth and 
power of the Christian dispensation, which is al- 
ready established, and needs no further cre- 
dentials in order to confirm our faith in it. 



A GREAT PROBLEM 



A GREAT PROBLEM 

A great, if not the greatest, problem of the 
church, to-day, lies in the Sunday question. It 
is not simply whether "America will keep Sun- 
day on the calendar, and relapse into paganism 
or observe a weekly Sabbah and become 
Christian." In the last analysis, the responsi- 
bility for the observance of the Sabbath rests 
upon the individual man. "No usurpations of 
corporations or communities can excuse the in- 
dividual, if he breaks the Sabbath." These are 
strong words. But are they too strong, when 
our American civilization is so imperiled by the 
continuously increasing neglect of the Sabbath? 

"The sabbath was made for man, and not 
man for the sabbath." To understand the 
meaning of this, we must consider how men 
were treating the Sabbath in Christ's day. 
They had entirely reversed the true order, and 
were teaching that man was made for the; Sab- 
bath. According to their notion, the Sabbath 

6 9 



70 THE LIVING CHRIST 

was sacred, apart from any consideration of the 
relation which man sustains to it. Whether 
it was good for man or not, he was to keep it. 
The institution was everything, and man was of 
no account. Jesus brings forward a new inter- 
pretation. The Sabbath is not to be kept for 
its own sake, but for man's sake. As an insti- 
tution, it must conform to man's requirements. 
The manner of keeping it will depend upon hu- 
man need. The Sabbath is man's servant, not 
his master. Such an interpretation of the Sab- 
bath amounted to a declaration of indepen- 
dence. Henceforth men were free, not in the 
sense of being absolved from keeping the Sab- 
bath at all, but free in the sense of having lib- 
erty to use the Sabbath to their own highest 
advantage. 

This teaching does not encourage loose views 
concerning the practice of keeping the Sabbath, 
nor lessen its binding force. The whole ques- 
tion is taken up into a larger and more vital 
conception, which issues in a principle 
grounded in the nature of things. The Sab- 
bath was made for man, therefore man cannot 
be what he ought to be, without it Its range 
is universal, and its necessity coextensive as 



A GREAT PROBLEM 71 

the human race. No home, no community, no 
state, no nation can attain to its best estate, un- 
less there is incorporated into its life the Sab- 
bath idea. The Sabbath is no longer merely a 
positive, but a moral precept ; that is, its reasons 
are laid in nature. Here is the precept, "Thou 
shalt not steal. ,, It is a moral precept, for the 
reason that it is binding whether the command 
is given, "Thou shalt not steal," or not. Re- 
spect for the property rights of others is not 
created by law; the law simply formulates a 
principle of right, which existed before govern- 
mental authority. 

Here is the command, "Remember the sab- 
bath day, to keep it holy." Putting Christ's 
meaning into the command, we find that it is 
grounded in the very nature of man's constitu- 
tion, which requires intervals of physical repose, 
and time for spiritual culture. Science itself 
has verified the need of physical rest, one day in 
seven. And, as to spiritual culture, how can 
that be secured unless time is given for its de- 
velopment? The conclusion of scientific re- 
search respecting the natural endowments of 
man, is, that he has a religious nature as< much 
as a physical, or an intellectual nature. What 



72 THE LIVING CHRIST 

is man to do with his physical nature? Culti- 
vate it. What, with his intellectual nature? 
Cultivate it. What must he do with his relig- 
ious nature? Cultivate it. But how can he 
cultivate it, unless attention is given to it, unless 
time is set apart for the purpose? It is right 
here that the Sabbath comes in to satisfy the 
demand of man's religious nature. It is 
grounded in the very constitution of man, and, 
hence, entails an obligation. 

We have as much right to declare that men 
ought to keep the Sabbath, as that they ought 
to tell the truth, or ought to be honest, or ought 
to be Christians. When our Lord says, The 
Sabbath was made for man, he means that the 
best product of manhood cannot be secured 
without its proper observance. The highest 
in man cannot be developed and worked out 
to perfection without it. Under this concep- 
tion the observance is resolved into an obliga- 
tion. And it is this matter of obligation that 
needs emphasis in these times. 

What is it to keep the Sabbath? I believe 
there are many who keep it in some such way 
as did two little boys, who were using their 
Scripture blocks, making all kinds of objects, and 



A GREAT PROBLEM 73 

erecting little houses. After a time, the elder 
said to the younger, "You must not build 
houses on the Sabbath day." "But you are 
building a house," was the reply. "Well," said 
the older one, "I am going to put a steeple on 
mine ; and it is right to build a meeting-house 
on the Sabbath." Then they played "keeping 
store ;" and the elder said to the younger, "It is 
not right to keep store on the Sabbath day." 
"But you are keeping store," said the younger. 
"Oh, but I am keeping an apothecary-store," 
was the response. 

The Sabbath day may be so treated as! to be, 
virtually, like other days, and this under the 
guise of keeping it. The merchant shuts up his 
store Saturday night, and says, I shall not open 
again until Monday morning; I do not believe 
in keeping store on Sunday. But, it may be, he 
takes home with him, Saturday night, his day- 
book and ledger and does some footing up of 
accounts on Sunday, besides occupying his mind 
with various plans for the opening on Monday 
morning. According to the letter, he is not 
keeping store on Sunday, but according to the 
spirit, he is a store-keeper, seven days in the 
week. 



74 THE LIVING CHRIST 

In regard to any important requirement or 
obligation, there is always some special duty 
connected with it, which may be reckoned as a 
sort of key to the situation. What is that 
special duty upon which hinges the whole ques- 
tion of Sabbath observance? It is attendance 
uponj the sanctuary of God. I mean that man's 
relation to the sanctuary is an index of his 
proper or improper observance of the Sabbath. 
Of course, I would not be understood as affirm- 
ing that such attendance absolutely insures a 
proper observance of the Sabbath. What I 
have in mind is, that sanctuary worship is such 
an important feature of Sabbath observance, 
that habitual neglect of the sanctuary is well- 
nigh a certain indication that the Sabbath is 
not kept as it ought to be kept. Pick out any 
man, in any city or any town, who is never found 
in the house of God, who is utterly indifferent 
to worship in the sanctuary, and you will rec- 
ognize a person who is not making the best use 
of the Sabbath. And, by best use I mean such 
a use of the Sabbath as leads to moral improve- 
ment, to enlargement of the soul, to sympathy 
with the highest interests of man. In such case, 
the tendency is to moral deterioration, to a 



A GREAT PROBLEM 75 

lowering of the standards of life, and to engross- 
ment with material things. 

I was very much interested in reading, some 
time ago, what Rev. Robert Collyer had to say 
on this subject. He was, for twenty years, pas- 
tor of a Unitarian church, in Chicago, and was 
very liberal in all his notions concerning 
Christianity. But when he preached his last 
sermon in Chicago, on the eve of his departure 
to New York, to assume charge of the Church 
of the Messiah, he took this passage for his 
text : "I was glad when they said unto me, Let 
us go into the house of the Lord." After the 
service, a wise friend remarked to him, "I wish 
you had preached that sermon twenty years ago, 
instead of the one I remember you did preach, 
in which you told us that, perhaps, we might 
sometimes worship God better in the woods or 
meadows or in our own homes than in the 
sanctuary. I remember saying to myself, at 
the time, we do not need such exhortation. We 
are ready enough to stay at home, or wander 
about out-of-doors. Our minister has no idea 
how glad we are to hear such doctrine. ,, Dr. 
Collyer then makes this confession: "I had no 
idea how easy it was for the men and women 



76 THE LIVING CHRIST 

of free thought and free ways to drift from the 
service of the sanctuary. Men come to me 
and say, There is no need for me to go into the 
house of the Lord. I have outgrown all that, 
and am, now, my own temple and my own 
priest/ But I am wont to ask such men, now, 
What do you really do in the woods, and on 
the waters, and in your own homes on the Sab- 
bath Day, and what does it all come to?' I will 
tell you what it comes to : The drift of it all, is 
to slay faith, and to touch with paralysis the 
nerve of any grand endeavor." And then he 
adds, "Few and far between are those who can 
withstand the baneful power of sanctuary neg- 
lect ; while, with multitudes whom no man can 
number, this 'own temple' and 'own priest* busi- 
ness is merely seeming; and the dumb things, 
that run and fly, worship God more truly than 
they do." Dr. Bellows, of the same liberal faith 
says, "I never knew one man, or woman, who 
steadily neglected the house of prayer, and the 
worship of God, on the Lord's Day, who 
habitually neglected it, and had a theory by 
which it was neglected, who did not come to 
grief, and bring others to grief." This is pretty 
strong testimony in favor of the sanctuary and 



A GREAT PROBLEM 77 

its worship, coming, as it does, from two of the 
most prominent Unitarian ministers in the land. 

If you want to demolish the Sabbath utterly, 
as a day of blessing to the world, begin at the 
sanctuary, and induce every man, woman and 
child never to darken its doors, and you will be 
well along with the work of destruction. Get 
rid of the sanctuary, and the Sabbath Day would 
be brought low! Strike out the worship of 
God in his house, and you have struck down 
the day; and a spin into the country on a bi- 
cycle, or in an automobile, would represent 
about the highest form of Sabbath observance! 

Where is the place in which is awakened the 
impulse for charitable endeavor and philan- 
thropic enterprise? Where is the place in 
which men's hearts are stirred to a sense of re- 
sponsibility, not only in respect to their own 
highest interests, but of others? I would not 
locate the place on a "wheel" pedaled through 
the suburbs of the town, for Sunday pleasure. 
I would not locate the place in the woods or by 
babbling brooks, where people profess to be 
their own temples and their own priests. Nor 
would I locate the place in homes where sanc- 
tuary work has become a matter of utter indif- 



78 THE LIVING CHRIST 

ference. I do not believe that any of these 
places yield the inspirations which take men 
out of themselves, and make them tender and 
keenly responsive to a world in need. 

What great philanthropic enterprise, or 
scheme of benevolence, ever originated in 
hearts which had neither relish for, nor con- 
nection with, the house of God? Can you name 
an instance? I cannot! And yet, there are 
people who pretend to believe in a Sabbath 
without the sanctuary. At least, this is their 
practical belief; for they are never found there. 
There are church-members who have so little 
regard for their own influence, as well as for the 
Sabbath itself, that they suffer themselves to 
swell the ranks of those who neglect the sanc- 
tuary. 

In the economy of the kingdom of God, what 
does a Christian amount to, who regularly ab- 
sents himself from the house of worship? Tell 
me| of one such person who / is doing aggressive 
work for the Master! If we would lift up the 
Sabbath and make it a power in the land, we 
must first lift it up in the sanctuary, and honor 
it with the worship of Almighty God! Teach 
the children, from early childhood, to attend 



A GREAT PROBLEM 79 

public worship. We have come upon a time 
when children are nearly done with the habit of 
church-going on the Sabbath. They attend the 
Sabbath-school, and then go home and spend 
their time in their own way. Would you de- 
prive the children of the associations of going 
to church ? If you do, by and by they will im- 
agine that they are too large or too old to at- 
tend the Sunday-school, and will sever their 
connection with it. And then what? They 
have formed no associations with the church, as 
a place of worship ; and, being out of the Sun- 
day-school, they will take their places, very nat- 
urally, among those who do not attend church 
at all. Children should not attend the Sunday- 
school less, but should attend worship in the 
house of God more. If your child is too fee- 
ble to attend but one service, let that service 
be the sanctuary, every time, if you do not want 
on your hands, by and by, a person who cares 
more for Sunday as a day of picnics and ex- 
cursions than a day for rational enjoyment in 
connection with services which minister to that 
which is noblest in man. 

I know the frequent excuse for not taking chil- 
dren to the sanctuary is, that they cannot under- 



80 THE LIVING CHRIST 

stand the preaching. The fact is, they under- 
stand a great deal more than we, think they do. 
A little girl went to church one Sunday, when 
the minister preached on the text: "Thou hast 
left thy first love!" Monday morning, her 
father and mother got into some sort of a dis- 
pute — I don't know whether it amounted to 
what is now called "an unpleasantness," or not ; 
but it was SO' much of a dispute, that, after the 
father was gone from the house, the little girl 
said, "Mother, you must not forget what the 
minister said yesterday about leaving your first 
love." Children not only understand the 
preaching more frequently than we give them 
credit for, but they know how to apply it. 
Take the children with you to the sanctuary. 
There is no substitute for it. 

I am not advocating a return of the old Puri- 
tan Sabbath, so stiff and formal that all were 
glad when it was over. No, not that. Some 
time ago, a scientific excursion was investigat- 
ing at the mouth of the Patapsco River, and 
there was found, buried twelve feet below the 
surface, a fossil cypress-swamp deposit, it hav- 
ing been exposed by the action of the waves in 
wearing away the bay bluffs. Numerous cy- 



A GREAT PROBLEM 81 

press stumps were seen in upright position, with 
their roots in place, exhibiting the peculiar 
characteristics of these trees. Some of the 
stumps were of gigantic size, the largest meas- 
uring about ten feet at the top. They were in 
a perfect state of preservation. Not all, but a 
good deal of the old Sabbath keeping was like 
that. It was fossilized. Possibly, there is still 
here and there one who is trying to have a Sab- 
bath like that. If so, he is doing more harm 
than good. 

Reading the New Testament, and looking 
into the character of the Sabbaths of Jesus, we 
find that they are filled with the most abundant 
life, in the way of kind deeds and loving service. 
We do not want to fossilize the Christian Sab- 
bath, but preserve it full of glad and joyful 
Christian service. We want to keep the Sab- 
bath in such a way that it will overflow into the 
other days of the week and make them glad and 
joyful too. 

We are told that the Missouri River leaks 
badly. The government engineers once meas- 
ured the flow of the Missouri in Montana, and 
again, some hundred miles down stream. To 
their surprise, they found that the Missouri, in- 



82 THE LIVING CHRIST 

stead of growing larger down stream, was very 
perceptibly smaller at the lower point. Da- 
kota farmers, sinking artesian wells to the south 
and east of those points of the Missouri, have 
found immense volumes of water, where the 
geologists said there could not be any. So it 
is believed that the farmers have tapped the 
water leaking from that big hole in the Mis- 
souri River in Montana; and, from these wells, 
they irrigate large tracks of land. I think a 
profitable Sabbath is one whose gracious in- 
fluences leak out into all the days of the week, 
making our Mondays and Tuesdays and all the 
other days of hard competition in business life 
more fertile in brotherly kindness and genuine, 
Christian sympathy. Possibly, where some peo- 
ple think the Sabbath is getting smaller, the 
leakage is of this kind. 



THE UNSEEN WORLD 



THE UNSEEN WORLD 

The ascension of Christ is closely connected 
with, and the proper and natural sequel of, the 
resurrection. From a human point of view, 
there would have been something lacking if 
Christ had not parted from his disciples in some 
such way as he did. 

Many difficulties of Scripture are solved by the 
"principle of accommodation/' Christ's coming 
into the world was for our sakes; and so he 
accommodates himself to our needs and limita- 
tions. His method of coming, his method of 
living, his method of dying, his method of ris- 
ing, his method of leaving the world, was for our 
sakes. So far as he, himself, was concerned, 
his visible ascension was not necessary. He 
could have entered the unseen world some other 
way, just as well. That he was taken up, and a 
cloud received him out of sight, was simply us- 
ing the principle of accommodation which he 
had employed during all his earthly career. 

8 5 



86 THE LIVING CHRIST 

The situation was this: Christ had completed 
his work as a visible Redeemer; henceforth his 
activity was to be manifested in a manner which 
the physical senses could not recognize ; he was 
to be seen no more. Now it was of the utmost 
importance that the Apostles and the infant 
Church should be fully persuaded that Jesus had 
finally vanished into the Unseen, and would no 
more visit his people, except through the in- 
fluence and power of his Holy Spirit. If he had 
simply disappeared, as he had, temporarily, done 
before, on several occasions, during the forty 
days after the resurrection, it would have been 
hard for them to believe that he might not come 
again, as he had to the disciples on the way to 
Emmaus and on the shores of Gennesaret. 
There would have been imminent peril lest they 
should be interfered with, in the accomplish- 
ment of their proper work, by such natural long- 
ings and expectations. 

A visible ascension into the clouds unques- 
tionably savors of the notion of a materialistic 
heaven beyond the blue, which is entirely out of 
keeping with our present conception of the 
spirit-world. And yet it is difficult, if not im- 
possible, to imagine how the disciples could 



THE UNSEEN WORLD 87 

have been convinced of his final and irrevocable 
disappearance from the scenes of his earthly 
labors in any other way. Such an act of accom- 
modation to the limited ideas of the time, would, 
at least, be entirely in keeping with his gentle 
and sympathetic dealings with the mental limi- 
tations of his followers ; and it disposes of most 
of the objections raised against the story of the 
ascension. 

If Jesus had not parted from his disciples in 
this formal manner, they would often have been 
confronted with the question, Where is he? 
You say, Jesus of Nazareth has risen from the 
dead, but what became of him? Produce your 
risen Master and we will believe in him. This 
would be the triumphant taunt to which Chris- 
tians would ever be exposed. 

But he takes a formal leave of them, and sets 
at rest, forever, the expectation that he is to 
continue with them in visible form; and soon 
they catch the meaning of that deep saying 
which he had spoken to them before: "It is ex- 
pedient for you that I go away : for if I go not 
away, the Comforter will not come unto you." 

You will notice that, ever afterwards, the 
apostles' conception of Christianity involved 



88 THE LIVING CHRIST 

the ascension. The ascension pervades and un- 
derlies all their teaching. The ascension for 
them was no ideal act, no imaginary or fantastic 
elevation, but a real, actual passing of the risen 
Saviour out of the region and order of the seen 
and natural, into the region and order of the 
unseen and supernatural. 

Paul says, "If then ye were raised together 
with Christ, seek the things that are above, 
where Christ is, seated on the right hand of 
God." To the question, "Where is he?" they 
have a ready answer. As Peter affirmed, Jesus 
is the being whom the heavens must receive un- 
til the times of the restoration of all things. In 
the ascension, then, we have not what Professor 
Huxley calls the "isolated wonder," (which is 
his definition of a miracle) but a fact so bound up 
with the fact of the resurrection that the latter 
would be fragmentary without it. It is a super- 
natural sequel of a supernatural resurrection. It 
completes the program of the life and work of 
Jesus Christ, in a world that he came to save. He 
entered upon the sphere of the seen and temporal 
by a miraculous door ; and it was fitting, consid- 
ering the whole course of his earthly^ career, that 
his departure from this world should be through 



THE UNSEEN WORLD 89 

a miraculous door. Both his coming and going 
were a part of a scheme which forms one united, 
harmonious whole. 

What is the value of the ascension of Christ 
as a belief for the Christian Church and for man- 
kind? We recognize, at once, that it had a spec- 
ial value for the first disciples. They needed to 
be weaned from the idea that Jesus was, hover- 
ing over this earth for the purpose of appearing 
to them, from time to time, in visible form. 

They needed to understand, once for all, that 
the time had passed when Jesus would appeal 
to them through the physical senses. But there 
is a larger significance of the ascension which 
has its value for us, and for all the ages to 
come. The ascension emphasizes a stupen- 
dous fact, the fact of the existence of an unseen 
world. One might ask, Whither did our Lord 
go when he took his departure from this earthly 
scene? It would be a very childish notion to 
say that he went up and up, far above the most 
distant star. We all know, to-day, that there 
is neither up nor down in this visible universe. 
If we were transported to the moon, we would 
see the earth shining over our heads, just as we 
see, at night, the moon shining over our heads. 



90 THE LIVING CHRIST 

We sometimes speak of heaven as "up," some- 
where beyond the stars, as though if we went up 
far enough, we should come to it. But this is 
merely a conventional form of speech. It has 
the same significance as to say the sun rises. 
The sun, in reality, never rises. And heaven is 
neither up somewhere, nor down somewhere. 
In the ascension of Christ we are told that he 
was taken up; but this is only an accommoda- 
tion of language. It is not an accurate form of 
expression, no more than to say that the sun 
rises. What wasi the ascension in reality? It 
was Christ passing from the seen world to the 
unseen world. And, as soon as the transit was 
made from the seen to the unseen, he was nearer 
his disciples than ever before. He went away 
from the seen to be in the unseen, where he 
could directly make impact upon the hearts of 
men and thus inspire them from within. The 
ascension of Christ teaches the existence of an 
unseen world. Men are so> dominated by their 
physical senses that they find it hard to put 
much value upon anything that is unseen. 
Talk to them about an unseen world, and they 
say, Where is it? A thing cannot be of much 
consequence, that is entirely out of sight. 



THE UNSEEN WORLD 91 

Science is helping us wonderfully, in appre- 
ciating things that are unseen. It has settled 
to a demonstration that the mightest things of 
which we have any knowledge are unseen. 
The force we call gravitation, that is engaged in 
swinging planets and stars and solar systems 
through space, at a pace which the imagination 
even cannot follow, bearing them all up as if but 
a feather's weight, is an unseen force. No man 
ever saw it, or touched it, or smelled it. It is 
utterly inscrutable, and beyond the reach of the 
senses, except in its effect. Science is teaching 
us that all space is pervaded with a subtle ether, 
through which the light of the sun is wafted to 
us on its waves ; and yet, it is so fine and tenu- 
ous that we have no recognizable means of dis- 
covering what it is ; it is unseen. No eye or ear 
or nostril can detect a scintilla of evidence for 
its existence. 

A few years ago a remarkable book was 
written entitled "The Unseen Universe/' It was 
the production of two great scientists, Professor 
Balfour Stewart, and Professor Peter Gurthrie 
Tait. These men were recognized the world over 
as authority in certain departments of Physics. 
Stewart was; one of the founders of the spec- 



92 THE LIVING CHRIST 

trum analysis ; and Tait became famous for his 
investigations in electricity, heat and light. 

The argument of this great work is, that the 
tendency of scientific investigation is towards 
the necessity of a belief in an Unseen Universe. 
That is, science requires, in order to maintain 
consistency and completeness, the belief that the 
present visible universe had its origin from a 
different order of things 1 . What is the last 
secret of matter according to science? It is the 
molecule, which seems to be less than the least 
of all things, for it is no larger than the one- 
five-hundred-millionth of an inch. The visible 
universe: is made of atoms and begins with 
atoms, so far as science can discover. But this 
is not all. When scientific men begin to study 
these infinitesimals, of which the world is made, 
they discover that they exist in equal quantities, 
or in exact and constant ratios ; they are exactly 
fitted, in size, to the conditions where they are 
found. Here is a paper of pins ; they are regu- 
lar in their shape and exactly alike. What is 
your conclusion in regard to that paper of pins? 
You say they were made ; this uniformity of size 
is no mere happening. What is the conclusion 
concerning the atoms, which are perfectly regu- 



THE UNSEEN WORLD 93 

lar in size? They were manufactured. Sir 
John Herschel said, the molecules have every 
appearance of being manufactured. 

Professor Maxwell, following Herschel's rea- 
soning, concludes that the formation of the mole- 
cule is, therefore, an event not belonging to the 
order of nature in which we live. Now observe 
just what that means. The present visible 
world is composed of atoms. They were manu- 
factured; but the present visible world has no 
machinery for manufacturing atoms; therefore, 
they were manufactured somewhere else; the 
machinery belongs to the unseen world. 
Science, as represented by its great minds, holds, 
then, that the seen world is the product of the 
unseen world. It follows, therefore, that what 
we discover with the telescope and microscope, is 
not the measure of all the works of God. Pro- 
fessors Stewart and Tait are led to say: "The 
visible universe cannot comprehend the whole 
works of God. Perhaps, indeed, it forms only 
an infinitesimal portion of that stupendous 
whole, which is entitled to be called the UNI- 

VHRRSE " 

We think the universe embraces what we can 
see, and that is about all there is of it. These 



94 THE LIVING CHRIST 

distinguished scientists say that it is quite 
likely that what is seen is only an infinitesimal 
portion of the real universe, the larger share of 
which goes to constitute the unseen universe. 

Here is another suggestion of an unseen 
world to which science calls our attention. It 
arises from the apparent waste in the present 
economy of things. Science has established the 
law of the Conservation of Energy. That law 
means, that in this universe nothing is lost, 
nothing is wasted. Energy can be transferred 
from one thing to another, but it cannot be de- 
stroyed. The time) was when men believed that 
light, heat, magnetism and electricity were so 
many different substances. But we know now 
that they are one and the same thing. Each 
can become the other. Light can become elec- 
tricity, and electricity can become light. If you 
get rid of one you have the other, taking up into 
itself what the other contained. Hence there is 
no waste; the energy is conserved in another 
form. And yet, scientists have difficulty in 
maintaining the principle of the conservation of 
force, unless they admit the existence of an un- 
seen world. Take the sun, for example. He is 
daily squandering his resources of light and heat 



THE UNSEEN WORLD 95 

in space ; and, at his present prodigal rate, will, 
eventually, become a bankrupt. Professor 
Young, of Princeton, tells us that the sun cannot 
hold out and do business at the old stand, much 
more than fifty millions of years. Slowly but 
surely it is becoming a cinder. Well, what be- 
comes of all but a tithe of this waste of his sub- 
stance? Our earth absorbs just a trifle of the 
sun's light and heat ; and the same is true of the 
other planets and bodies ; but what becomes of 
the great bulk of the sun's energy? It is con- 
stantly streaming out into space ; but where does 
it go? Science forbids us to suppose that a bit 
of it is lost ; not a solitary, wandering sunbeam 
can be lost out of existence, in empty space. 
What becomes of it, then? Principal Dawson, 
noted for his scientific researches, tells us, "That 
the great machine for the dissipation of energy, 
in which we exist and which we call the universe, 
must have a correlative and complement in the 
unseen, a conclusion now forced upon physi- 
cists, by the necessities of the doctrine of the 
conservation of force. ,, 

He means that there must be in existence an- 
other medium, or mode, of existence, different 
from that which we know anything about, sus- 



96 THE LIVING CHRIST 

taining some relation to this material system, 
into which what seems to be wasted energy in 
this world is conserved and perpetuated. The 
sunbeam, therefore, that streams out into empty 
space and is not absorbed in this visible uni- 
verse, is absorbed and utilized in the realm of 
the unseen. Everything that is apparently 
wasted in this world is transferred and put to 
some further use in the world unseen, and will be 
born again in some future evolution. This is 
what the great experts in science are to-day 
suggesting. 

A man dies, and the energy that he had in life 
seems to disappear. Is it wasted? Is it lost? 
Nothing is wasted or lost in this universe. 
What has become of it? Surely it isi not here; 
it has gone somewhere; where has it gone? It 
is transferred to another medium in the realm 
unseen. If the very sunbeams which are not 
utilized in our visible universe are treasured up 
and put to further use in the unseen universe, 
can we imagine that the life of a man is utterly 
wasted at death, and sinks into nonentity? If 
the principle of the "conservation of energy" is 
strong enough to save a sunbeam from annihila- 
tion, is not the principle sufficient to save a man 
from the same fate? 



THE UNSEEN WORLD 97 

There are people who glibly say, "Death ends 
all !" They imagine that they are simply flying 
in the face and eyes of Scripture, according to 
its teaching. But the man who says that, to- 
day, is flying in the face and eyes of science. 
Science is teaching that death ends nothing; 
that what seems to be waste and loss is simply 
the evidence that there has been a transference 
from the seen to- the unseen ; that the life gone 
from sight has escaped to another medium, 
where all its energy is conserved and put to 
higher uses. But where is this medium or un- 
seen universe from which, according to Pro- 
fessors Stewart and Tait, come both the life and 
the matter of the visible universe? 

The seen and the unseen worlds are in close 
touch with each other: the unseen) world is in 
such relation to this present, visible world, as to 
permit action and reaction between the two. 
Professor Tait says that the ultimate structure of 
matter should be considered "as a cage." It is 
open, as wickerwork ; the molecule is not a close 
corporation. What is Professor Tait endeavor- 
ing to teach, when he tells us that the ultimate 
structure of matter, or the molecule, if you 
please, should be considered as a cage, or a 



98 THE LIVING CHRIST 

piece of wickerwork? He is showing that this 
material universe, so far as science can judge, is 
in the midst of a larger spiritual universe, which 
not only surrounds it but permeates it ; and that 
this world, and all other visible worlds, may be 
conceived of as a veil floating in the air, taking 
the motions of the currents of the spiritual 
world, revealing in the very wavings of its folds 
the breath of the breeze upon it ; yet not a film 
of this material veil is broken ; its texture is no- 
where torn by the invisible element all the 
while playing in and out among its many 
threads. 

Thus, by science, we are conducted to such 
thoughts as these ; the material world had its 
birth, or origin, in the spiritual world; the ma- 
terial world is sustained and maintained in con- 
tinued life and existence by the spiritual world ; 
when any form of energy, in the material world, 
has completed its service, instead of being lost 
or annihilated, it returns to the unseen or spirit- 
ual world where it originated, and is put to 
further and higher uses; and, finally, the seen 
world in which we live at the present time, is 
constantly wrought upon and interpenetrated by 
the forces of the unseen or spiritual world, so 



THE UNSEEN WORLD 99 

that we are never to think of it as having its 
nearest boundary far away, separated from us by 
vast distances, up in the heavens somewhere, but 
so close at hand that we are carried in its arms 
and nourished by it. 

Well, you say, "What has this to do with the 
ascension of Christ ?" It helps us to under- 
stand where he went, when he disappeared from 
earth. It was a transference from the seen to 
the unseen world. He, immediately, took on 
the larger possibilities which can be realized in 
the spiritual world. He passed behind the veil, 
where the infinitude of his nature could be dis- 
played. He is no longer a local Christ, con- 
fined to Jerusalem, but he becomes a universal 
Christ, so that he could say to his disciples, who 
mourned his departure, thinking, when gone, he 
could be no more with them, "Lo, I am with you 
alway, even unto the end of the world !" 

Where is heaven? Heaven, with its abiding 
life, is in the Unseen, out of which the worlds 
appeared, and into which all their glory shall 
depart. Heaven is the end of all the Creator's 
ways. It is, in its final and enduring perfection, 
the conclusion of the whole creation. "It doth 
not yet appear what we shall be." So the Bible 



igo THE LIVING CHRIST 

reveals a celestial glory, which is more than the 
terrestrial, of a different order, and into whose 
higher realms of being, unrealized as yet, we and 
all things temporal are hastening. 

"And so," as a recent writer has expressed it, 
"our latest physical speculations, call them 
flights of the scientific imagination, if you please, 
sent out to search over the depths for the ever- 
lasting hills, bring back upon their wings the 
perfume of far-off lands, and some fresh signs 
of the rest that shall remain after the flood of 
years shall have passed away !" 



A REUGION WITHOUT A SPECIALTY 



A RELIGION WITHOUT A SPECIALTY 

It is beginning to be realized, by the best re- 
ligious thought of the world, that the special 
thing about the religion of Jesus Christ is, that 
it has no specialty. The tremendous signifi- 
cance of this fact may not be seen at a glance, 
but it will appear upon a little reflection. The 
idea is involved in the words of Paul, "There 
can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be 
neither bond nor free, there can be no male and 
female: for ye all are one man in Christ 
Jesus." 

The ancient world was full of specialties and 
distinctions. It drew the line here, and it drew 
the line there. There was a specialty of race, 
Jew and Greek; there was a specialty of social 
condition, bond and free; there was a specialty 
of sex, male and female. But as« Paul thinks of 
the mighty magnetism that is drawing all 
towards the one center, Christ, he declares, in 
substance, the specialty of the religion of Christ, 
103 



io 4 THE LIVING CHRIST 

which I preach, is, that it has no specialty. Ye 
are all one man in Him ! 

Let us illustrate by contrasting some of the 
religions of the world with Christianity. We dis- 
cover that each of these religions has a special- 
ty. There is some one feature that stands out, 
gathering into itself and absorbing the whole 
interest of the devotee. The specialty of the old 
religion of Egypt was caring for its dead. They 
built tombs and pyramids to preserve their 
dead ; and their mummies have been perpet- 
uated to this day. Theirs was a religion of sad- 
ness. The central thought of the religion of 
ancient Persia, associated with the name of Zo- 
roaster, was that there were two deities of equal 
power, Ormuzd the good, and Ahriman the evil, 
who were engaged in perpetual conflict. The 
idea of conflict was its specialty. Life was a 
battle to be fought to the finish, and the result 
uncertain, from the beginning to the end. What 
marked the religion of Brahmanism, and made it 
peculiar? Its system of caste, and the denial of 
the personality of the soul. As a consequence, 
there could be no personal responsibility. 

Self-culture was the prominent feature of 
Buddhism. The end was the annihilation 



RELIGION WITHOUT A SPECIALTY 105 

of the soul, or absorption into the universal 
mind. 

The Greeks had their religion. Its specialty 
was nature, nature in all its beautiful forms. Its 
gods were humanized; and, in character, they 
compared unfavorably with that of human 
beings. 

Confucianism was practical atheism, and its 
specialty was filial piety. 

So we find that all these old religions of the 
world, some of which are already extinct, had 
their specialized characteristics, in one direction 
or another. What was the result? Each pro- 
duced a certain kind of men. The religion of 
Greece tended to produce artists. The old relig- 
ion of Persia tended to make warriors. Brah- 
manism produced men of spiritual pride, or of 
the caste spirit. Buddhism; made ascetics. And 
thus a peculiar type of men correspond with a 
peculiar type of religion. 

Now observe wherein Christianity differs 
from all these. It aims at the production of 
men, just men, and nothing more ; but men true 
and complete, sons of God. Its specialty is not 
warriors, not artists', not philosophers, not 
statesmen, not scholars. It aims to produce a 



io6 THE LIVING CHRIST 

man ; and when this is accomplished, its task is 
done. For, when you get a man everything 
else is sure to follow. If the man becomes a 
statesman, he will be a good statesman; if he 
becomes a warrior, he will be a good warrior; 
if he becomes a merchant, he will be a good 
merchant. 

What is it that eliminates from the Christian 
religion that peculiarity which we call special- 
ty? It is a fact that all true manhood heads 
up in Christ. In him we become; partakers of 
the divine nature. And what is the fundamental 
characteristic of the divine nature? It is love, 
for God is love. When Christ's spirit is 
wrought in us, then we have the divine nature 
of love; and in love there are no specialties. 
That is, it has no bounds, no limitations; it 
works out into life in all directions ; it thrills and 
pulses along every avenue of human activity; 
and makes the man, whether he belongs to one 
class or another class. In a word, Christianity 
consists not so much in this or that special teach- 
ing, as in the fact that it tends to embody in it- 
self a spirit which breathes through every out- 
ward deed and action. 

Well, it has taken nineteen centuries for the 



RELIGION WITHOUT A SPECIALTY 107 

Church to rise to this conception of the religion 
which it is pledged to maintain and propagate. 
Even now, the understanding is not complete in 
regard to the subject. The Church, to-day, is 
not thoroughly committed to the idea that its 
task is to make men in Christ. It is often found 
working in the direction of some specialty. 

What we call sectarianism is but a way of ex- 
pressing the fact that a church is engaged in 
some specialty. One church says to another 
"you are a sect," and we separate from you be- 
cause we emphasize a certain doctrine to which 
you do not give sufficient attention. Or it may 
be some form or ceremony produces the divid- 
ing line. Some one says, "We are the church 
and there is none other." "On what ground 
do you maintain this monopoly?" we ask. "Our 
church is in line with the apostolic succession. 
Our church runs straight back, without a break, 
to the Apostle Peter. It is our specialty, to be 
the church !" is the reply. Yes, we answer, and 
the more you insist upon and enforce and mag- 
nify that specialty, the farther you will be from 
the purpose and intent of the religion that Christ 
taught. For the specialty of his religion is 
found in the fact that it has no specialty. It 



io8 THE LIVING CHRIST 

would make a man, and apostolic succession is 
not worth a moment's consideration, only so 
far forth as it contributes to that end. The de- 
mand, to-day, is not for a church with a special 
sort of priesthood, which says, "we are of the 
Apostles/' but for a church that can bring the 
power of Christ into the lives of men. We de- 
mand a church which can turn out men who 
are the sonsi of God. And when we find such a 
church, with such a priesthood, we ask no 
questions about prestige and credentials; it 
has the divine certificate in what it accom- 
plishes. 

In this first decade of the twentieth century, 
we recognize that denominationalism has not 
that strong hold upon the churches that it once 
had. And that means that the churches are 
getting rid of their specialties. And when we 
say that, we do not mean that their special 
forms of organization are dissolving and disap- 
pearing. There are different churches with dif- 
ferent names, and will be, and, possibly, there 
ought to be. There are a great many ways of 
doing the same thing. We may travel on foot, 
or horseback, on a bicycle or by- automobile. 
In each case, we are traveling, and we will get 



RELIGION WITHOUT A SPECIALTY 109 

there, if we only keep on traveling. There are 
many forms under which the work of the 
church may be done. Some of these will be 
simple, others more complex ; but, after all, each 
is doing the same work and seeking the same 
end. And hence, when we say that the churches 
are getting rid of their specialties, we mean that 
they are ceasing, to* some extent, to lay mighty 
stress on certain doctrines or phases of doctrine, 
as though they were the sole guardians of such 
truth. It seems strange, and entirely contrary 
to the spirit of the age, for a church to say, "It 
is my forte to fortify, defend and promulgate 
the doctrine of the premillennial advent of 
Christ." If the doctrine is true, it is utterly 
subordinate to other teachings of the Bible, and, 
therefore, should have only secondary considera- 
tion. For a church to make this a specialty, 
simply belittles it and diverts it from the mission 
for which it was intended. Instead of engaging 
to show that the world is growing worse and 
worse, and that nothing can be done, of any ac- 
count, till Christ comes and sets up a personal 
reign in the earth, the thing wanted of the 
church is, that it should lead men into his king- 
dom and service. Why? Simply, because they 



no THE LIVING CHRIST 

belong there, and cannot be men, in the highest 
sense, if they are found anywhere else. 

What a tendency there hasi been, and even 
now is, to draw a sharp distinction between the 
secular and the religious! This is simply an 
indication that people have the idea that 
Christianity operates in this world in the form 
of a specialty, limited in its area of influence and 
power. Religion has its place, we are told, but 
it must keep in its place. Men say, keep your 
religion on a high plane, but dojnot let it down 
into the world, and thereby soil it. Let it live 
in the atmosphere of worship and praise. Sing 
and pray on Sunday ; but, when Monday arrives, 
just drop your worship and your song, and 
hustle like the fastest, that you may outstrip and 
outdo your competitor ! 

Religion must not be made too common 
and familiar ! O no, that will not do ! It must 
not be applied to politics and business ; it must 
not be taken into the markets, into the halls of 
legislation, into institutions of learning, into 
ways of town-improvement, into the ordinary, 
every-day affairs of life. It has its own peculiar 
schedule of duties, offices, ceremonies', doctrines, 
creeds; let it keep to these, and not attempt to 



RELIGION WITHOUT A SPECIALTY in 

mingle in the dust and smoke of secular affairs ! 
Religion is a specialty, and the church must 
maintain it as: a specialty ! 

How little there is in this conception of relig- 
ion which makes it an affair of manhood, of 
deepening moral purpose, of enlarging sym- 
pathy, of widening spiritual vision! There are 
signs that this conception of Christianity is pass- 
ing, and I believe that the twentieth century will 
see the last of it. 

The same tendency appears in morals as well 
as religion. In respect to morals, we may say 
that the specialty of Christianity is found in the 
fact that it has no specialty. All virtues are seen 
in the light of all the rest. It does not single 
out one virtue, and exhaust itself in urging and 
enforcing it. It produces a man in Christ, and, 
as a man in Christ, all the virtues are embodied 
in him, in a living form; and, henceforth, he is 
not virtuous in one direction, but in every direc- 
tion. 

But how often it occurs that men become 
specialists in morals ! Every man wants to say 
some good thing to himself. We ask him as to 
his forte, and he says, "I keep my word. When 
I tell you that I will do something, I will do it; 



ii2 THE LIVING CHRIST 

I never go back on my word ; I am known as an 
honest man on the street." Well, so far, so 
good ; but there are other virtues besides keep- 
ing one's word ; there is the duty of loving ene- 
mies, of being generous and kind, of being pure 
in thought and life. "O," he says, "I lay no 
claim to these things ; I am simply a man, who 
keeps his word, in business affairs!" He is a 
specialist in the realm of morals; and, being a 
specialist, he is not imbued with the spirit of 
Christianity, which has no specialty in this mat- 
ter. It would not only lead us to- keep our 
word, but every other requirement that grows 
out of our relation to God and man. 

There is a tendency also 1 , in some directions, 
to tack on to the religion of the Bible certain 
specialties which are made preeminent in ex- 
position and teaching. The doctrine of evolu- 
tion is being worked for all it is worth and a 
great deal more. Evolution is supposed to ex- 
plain everything, from star-dust to Deity! 
Now I believe in evolution ; I believe in it just 
as I do in the law of gravitation. But I do not 
think that gravitation is applicable to every- 
thing. I do not think that you can take the 
measure and weight of a man's thoughts by 



RELIGION WITHOUT A SPECIALTY 113 

means of gravitation. I believe that evolution 
is the process which obtains in the natural 
world. Progressive development has been and 
is the method by which God carries forward his 
work of creation. But I do not think there is 
a theory of general evolution which can be used 
to explain everything, to which every question 
in science and religion must be brought, in 
order to have it correctly answered. And yet 
this is being done in some quarters. Evolution 
is made a specialty, and everything is supposed 
to revolve about it. Some men are careful not 
to say, 'Thus saith the Lord!" but rather 
"Thus saith evolution !" They would have 
evolution tell us when and how the Bible was 
written. For them, everything in the Bible 
must bear the evolution stamp. 

Sometime ago, I preached a sermon in which 
I had occasion to say that the monotheistic 
idea, so far as we can gather from history, 
started with Abraham. A person said to me 
afterwards, "There was one mistake in the ser- 
mon ; it was your reference to Abraham, as hav- 
ing in possession the monotheistic idea; that 
could not be. ,, "Why," I asked, "could he not 
have it?" The answer was, that "the theory of 



ii4 THE LIVING CHRIST 

evolution would not permit it. That idea was 
evolved several hundred years after the time of 
Abraham/' 

Evolution has reached a fine point, when, by 
means of it, the exact time that a new idea pops 
into a man's head can be told. A question of 
this kind is not an affair of evolution, in any 
strict sense ; it is an affair of fact and evidence ; 
and if they threaten to spoil our theory of evo- 
lution, so much the worse for the evolution. It 
needs revising. The truth is', that, when we 
come into the realm, of free, conscious spirit, as 
we find it in man, there is no general theory of 
evolution that will explain his actions. Develop- 
ment in nature is one thing, and development in 
man is another. They are not governed by the 
same process. We may call it evolution in each 
case; but they are different, for they are on a 
different plane. Man has in charge his own 
evolution ; to considerable extent. How fast 
will a man develop in moral and spiritual char- 
acter? Well, ask him about it ; he has the busi- 
ness largely in hand. He can hinder or acceler- 
ate his; own development. It depends upon 
how he behaves. The children of Israel wan- 
dered forty years in the wilderness. They would 



RELIGION WITHOUT A SPECIALTY 115 

not have had to wander half that time, if 
they had behaved themselves. There is no a 
priori theory of evolution, by which you can tell 
how human history is written, or how the Bible 
came into existence. God is a free Spirit, and 
man is a free spirit ; and neither are handicapped 
by any evolutionary impediment. God is not 
compelled to make evolution his mouthpiece; 
he can inspire a prophet and cause him to utter 
his message. 

Evolution is neither an entity nor a deity, but 
a process, and there is no such absolute certainty 
about it, as a process, to determine, beforehand, 
just how it is to operate in the realm of spiritual 
life and experience. We are not obliged to defer 
to evolution, and read out of Scripture all evi- 
dence of the supernatural that appears on its 
pages. The evolutionary process is not in- 
evitable ; if it were, we could sit down and watch 
it and see it work. And yet, with some people, 
evolution has become a specialty, and they fall 
back on it as their dependence for saving the 
world. But they misinterpret history and trust 
to a broken reed. 

The Church's need is preachers, who shall 
convert men, and not merely trust to the devel- 



n6 THE LIVING CHRIST 

opment of the natural instinct of their hearers. 
The preacher who said that he did not expect 
to accomplish much for individuals, as such, but 
labored for the evolution and general uplift of 
society, will undoubtedly see of the travail of his 
soul, and will not be satisfied — with the result ! 

We are beginning to discover that the gos- 
pel-car of salvation is not being drawn over the 
rough and rugged highway of this world, by 
that slow, lumbering, club-footed dray-horse of 
evolution! There is a grand and inspiring 
"now" in the Gospel. "Now is the accepted 
time; behold, now* is the day of salvation;" and 
we are not obliged to wait for the arrival of the 
dray-horse. In preaching Christ, let us have no 
evolutionary "fad," that has to be consulted be- 
fore we can expect men will be turned from the 
error of their ways. Christianity has no specialty 
in this direction. 

I met a man from Chicago the other day. In 
the course of our conversation, I asked him with 
what church he was connected. He said he be- 
longed to Dr. Dowie's church. "And," said my 
friend, "Dr. Dowie is a wonderful man ; he has 
started a great movement. He has bought 
several thousand acres of land, and we are build- 



RELIGION WITHOUT A SPECIALTY 117 

ing a city, and we shall have a delightful com- 
munity." I asked what would be the special 
feature of the new city. He told me, in sub- 
stance, that the particular attraction of that city 
would be, that it would have no doctors in it! 
Divine healing would be employed to cure all 
sickness and disease. The Dowie church, or 
Dowie religion, is an attempt to dwarf and min- 
imize Christianity into a specialty, to make the 
cure of disease the main issue. The whole 
movement gathers about this one idea. Re- 
move it, and there would be nothing left. 

Christian Science belongs to the same class of 
special notions concerning Christianity. All the 
vitality and coherence of this movement hinge 
on the assumption that there is no such thing as 
disease, except in the mind's eye. Nothing need 
be said about the absurdity of such teaching. 
If it could be shown, or if it were admitted by 
Christian Scientists themselves, that sickness is 
a real thing, and not an imaginary thing, there 
would be nothing left of the whole scheme; it 
would evaporate into thin air. Its specialty 
consists in a man who has rheumatism in every 
joint repeating to himself, "I am not sick, I am 
not sick." If some excruciating twist of pain 



n8 THE LIVING CHRIST 

should seize him, and he should cry out, in his 
agony, "I am sick, I am sick," that would fix 
him as a Christian Scientist — or, rather, it would 
unfix him. 

If a man should go into* one of the Scientist 
gatherings with a bad cold, and the members 
should have the sanity and common sense ta ad- 
mit, with one accord, that a man with a bad 
cold was actually in their midst, there would be 
nothing left for them to do but disband; for 
their calling would be at an end. There would 
be no use for Christian Science after that. So far 
as it is anything, it is a specialty, and being a 
specialty, its very name is a misnomer and a 
delusion. 

Now, it is this larger and grander conception 
of Christianity, covering the whole area of life 
and thought and action, not laying special stress 
on one part rather than another, that we are to 
take with us into the coming years. I believe 
that we have entered upon an era of men-mak- 
ing rather than the cultivation of "fads" and 
specialties; and that the church of the future 
will be known, not by certain formulas of 
doctrine, or denominational ear-marks, how- 
ever important in themselves;, but by its success 



RELIGION WITHOUT A SPECIALTY 119 

in transforming men into the likeness of 
Christ. 

The world needs religious men, not religious 
specialists. 



A MOUNTAIN BACKGROUND 



A MOUNTAIN BACKGROUND 

Mountains occupy a prominent place in the 
Scriptures. There are, probably, a thousand 
references to them. The greatest sermon ever 
preached, is called "The Sermon on the 
MOUNT/' The most glorious vision of the 
heavenly world that ever dazzled the eyes of 
men, took place on a spot which is designated to 
this day, "The Mount of Transfiguration." We 
associate the Ten Commandments with 
the mountain on which they were given to 
Moses. And when the time of his departure 
had arrived, Moses, who had received the Law 
on Mount Sinai, went up into a mountain to die. 
Some of the sublimest and holiest hours of our 
Lord were spent in the mountains. It was on 
Mount Calvary where he died as the 
world's sacrifice : and on Mount Olivet where 
he ascended and passed into the heavens. 

The man who has not seen a mountain has 
not received mountain helps, not merely of cool 
123 



124 THE LIVING CHRIST 

breezes and a general refreshment of the physi- 
cal life, but also of the intellectual and spiritual. 
Mountains seem to have been built for the hu- 
man race, as, at once, its schools and cathedrals. 
I never shall forget the first impressions made 
upon me by the mountains of Switzerland. 
We reached Lucerne about ten o'clock at night. 
During the afternoon, we had been riding in 
view of the Black Forest of Germany. As even- 
ing came on, we crossed the border into Switzer- 
land, and rode some three hours, while all with- 
out was wrapped in darkness. When we arrived 
at Lucerne, there was nothing to be seen but the 
brilliantly illuminated city, which had been ob- 
serving the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary 
of its confederation. In the morning, the sun 
was shining brightly, and looking out of the win- 
dow, I saw what was supposedly a white cloud 
in the distance with peculiar characteristics. It 
had the deep, rich color of the alabaster, and 
maintained its figure and outline, as if carved 
out of snow-white marble by the hand of Om- 
nipotence. It was some time before I discovered 
that it was the snow-capped summit of the 
Jungfrau, more than twice the height of Mount 
Washington. 



A MOUNTAIN BACKGROUND 125 

After breakfast, my friend and I climbed a lit- 
tle eminence in the rear of the hotel and sat 
down to look upon the mountains round about 
Lucerne. On our left and not far away was 
the Rigi, the easily reached favorite mountain 
of the tourist. Before, and a little to the right 
of us, was Pilatus rearing its head nearly seven 
thousand feet above the sea. Behind the 
Pilatus, possibly fifty miles away, was the 
mighty Jungfrau with its everlasting snows 
smiling grimly in the sunlight. Farther to our 
right and stretching away into the dim distance, 
was that chain of mountains, the Bernese Alps. 
It is difficult to see how more of awe and gran- 
deur could be compressed into a single scene 
of earth. 

The impressions made on that occasion 
suggested lessons worthy of considera- 
tion. Two greatly contrasted scenes met our 
eyes. There was the mountain scene — grand, 
awful, calm 1 , dignified, silent. The hand of man 
could not disturb or break the serenity of those 
monuments of omnipotence — those everlasting 
hills rearing themselves into the heavens. With 
the feeling that God managed the mountains, it 
was restful and worshipful to look upon them. 



126 THE LIVING CHRIST 

The other scene was made up of that which 
was going on at our feet. There was the lake 
with it's crystal waters, placid and beautiful. 
Steamers were flying over it. Little boats were 
skimming its shores. People were crowding its 
banks and wharves. On the streets, all was life 
and activity in the buying and selling of the 
traffickers. A casual observer could see no 
special connection between the two scenes. Each 
appeared independent of the other. Yet what 
would the city be without the encircling moun- 
tains, which give to it all its attractiveness and 
picuresqueness? The very soil of the valleys has 
been contributed by the mountains; and the 
charming lake, embosomed among the hills, 
finds its supplies among the snows that bury 
their tops. The mountains, enriching the val- 
leys, have made all the joy and gladness of the 
city. On the other hand, were there no life and 
activity where now the city throbs with busy 
scenes, there would be wanting something to 
make the picture complete. The barrenness and 
desolation of the mountains would be deepened 
and intensified. It is the two scenes, in their 
relation to each other, that make Lucerne one 
of the most delightful spots on the face of the 



A MOUNTAIN BACKGROUND 127 

earth. It is what Phillips Brooks calls the 
"background and foreground" of the picture, 
which, together, constitute the magnificent 
result. 

There is in every life that which corresponds 
to the background and foreground of a scene 
in nature. There are the mountains round 
about, so to speak, which give stability and 
earnestness to life, and then there are things 
close at hand which engage our immediate at- 
tention. There are principles, convictions, be- 
liefs, as firm and fixed as the hills, which gird 
us about like the great mountains, and, then, 
there are the shifting scenes of every-day life, 
the work of the hour and its multiplied cares. 
The two must be joined together to make the 
complete life. To have activity without convic- 
tions and beliefs, is like having Lucerne without 
its background of Rigi and Pilatus! How tame 
and thin it would be without them! I can 
easily imagine that there are men in Lu- 
cerne who care as little for the mountains 
as they do for mole-hills. Day after day passes 
and they hardly look up at the hills, from 
whence cometh their help. They almost forget 
that the water, which they hold to their lips, cold 



128 THE LIVING CHRIST 

and sparkling, comes bounding and leaping 
down the mountain side to satisfy their thirst, 
so wholly absorbed are they with the immediate 
concerns of life. 

There is always danger of living in the fore- 
ground at the expense of the background. 
The foreground is all astir with activity. Here 
are trade and commerce; here are ships and 
factories; here is the business over which men 
go mad in their rivalries, and on account of 
which they give scarcely a passing glance to the 
mountains of righteousness which are round 
about them. How thin and false life becomes 
when it is not fed by the streams that flow down 
from the heights above! The great question, 
after all, is one concerning the background of 
life. What is it? What is that which is behind 
all our outward activities? In the background 
we place all the great truths and consecrations 
and impulses which are to keep us at outf work. 
The background answers to the question, What 
for? We work and work and work. We en- 
gage in this and that enterprise. We build and 
enlarge and multiply our forces. What for? 

Activity resting on a great principle, inspired 
by a great truth, is one thing ; and activity born 



A MOUNTAIN BACKGROUND 129 

of human ambitions, stimulated by temporal 
rewards, is quite another. It is one thing to en- 
ter the race for the prizes of life with God's 
mountains behind, from which we are fed by the 
streams of his power, and another thing to en- 
ter the race with nothing behind but the low 
plain of self-seeking and personal advancement. 
Background determines the man. We may 
say what we please about the city among the 
hills ; we may extol its thrift and enterprise ; we 
may rejoice in its noise and bustle; but the 
mountains round about make it beautiful for 
situation, and bestow upon it all its attractive- 
ness. We may praise the action of a man in 
the foreground, but sooner or later we shall 
come to measure. him by his character in the 
background. There is always something behind 
the action of a man, that we are looking for. 
He is brave, but what is the source of that 
bravery? He is kind, but whence that kindness? 
He strikes the indignant blow, but what made 
him strike? He is energetic, but what sends 
him out battling with all difficulties? We are 
watching for the background. How instantly 
character springs into some shape behind every 
deed ! While a man is selling a parcel of goods, 



130 THE LIVING CHRIST 

we are making" up our mind. We can't meet a 
man on the street in a one-minute conversation, 
without forming some sort of an idea of the man 
he is. It is this study of the man, that makes 
him so interesting. The simple fact that he is a 
creature of deeds is not that which fascinates 
us. His deeds are born of principles, purposes, 
impulses; they have their source in the back- 
ground of character; and, for this reason, he 
claims our attention and interest. The steamer 
that plows the ocean is a creature of deeds ; but 
it has no character. We could not make a hero 
of an ocean grayhound if we tried. Its triumphs 
could not become the subject of a novel, for they 
are all enacted in the foreground and have no 
background. 

All heroism is fed by the mountains round 
about; it is built out of the everlasting hills of 
truth and righteousness. 

Action stands in a true relation to character, 
when it exactly expresses it. The truth is, a 
man may conceal his motives. He may act 
well and be bad. In this case, he is governed 
by expediency. There is no harmony between 
his foreground and background When we 
look at a picture, you do not want to see the 



A MOUNTAIN BACKGROUND 131 

background standing out independent of the 
foreground. The hills must not seem to recoil 
from the embrace of the plain, neither 
must the plain seem to resist the em- 
brace of the hills. They must stand together, 
each the complement of the other. The man of 
truth, of sincerity, has this correspondence be- 
tween action and character. The untrue man 
says, "I am going to do good for appearance's 
sake; I have no special love for it, but I am 
going to do it." It is possible that this may 
be the means of quickening and awakening the 
principles of goodness; and, by reaction, pre- 
tense may be made to give way to honest pur- 
pose ; but it is hardly safe to depend on reaction, 
for a well-ordered life. It is like planting a city 
in the foreground and leaving the mountains to 
grow around it for a background. Let us have 
the mountains in the background to start with, 
and beautiful for situation will be the city in the 
foreground. Let us have noble activities resting 
on a high and glorious purpose. 

There are two tendencies among men; one, 
is to emphasize the foreground of life at the ex- 
pense of the background; the other, is to em- 
phasize the background at the expense of the 



132 THE LIVING CHRIST 

foreground. The idealists tell us that the great 
thing is being, not doing. "It is not what men 
do, but what they are, that decides their destiny. 
Be brave and true and generous, and do not 
bother yourself about action." There is senti- 
ment here. The picture is all background. 
There are the mountains round about; but there 
is noi place for the lake and stream and city in 
the valley. Then there are the hard practical 
men, who have eyes for nothing but action. 
"Do your duty and do not worry about the con- 
dition of the soul. Your deed, not you, is what 
the world desires. Get down into the business 
of the world and stir things, and when you die, 
others will take up the work, where you left off, 
and they will not ask what sort of a man you 
were. To do and not to be, that is the motto 
for you!" This is all foreground with nothing 
behind it but flatness and tameness. 

What the Bible calls worldliness, is, I sup- 
pose, just foreground without background. The 
peculiarity of worldliness is, that it draws all its 
resources from the seen. Its foreground is the 
visible things of earth. It wants riches, because 
they can be seen and handled. It wants place 
and honor, for these are palpable and easily 



A MOUNTAIN BACKGROUND 133 

recognized. It lives on the surface of things. 
Its joys are earthly, and its hopes are temporal. 
Its whole horizon is bounded by oceans and 
continents. The worldly man is the shallow 
man, the superficial man, the man without a 
background. His life is threaded to no great 
purpose; his motives are grounded in no great 
truth. 

What could be more essential to the young 
than a right understanding of what constitutes 
the foreground and background of life? In 
youth, immediate thoughts and occupations are 
intensely vivid ; life has untold attractions. The 
danger is that this foreground of active life will, 
in some way, obscure the background of earnest 
purpose. The beauty, the glory of young life, 
of the best and healthiest young life, is that, 
while it is intensely busy with the present, it is, 
also, aware of and inspired by those larger 
truths, the everlasting and timeless verities out 
of which all true life must be fed. A young 
man says, "I know nothing about God, I know 
nothing about immortality and heaven; and, 
furthermore, I do not care about them. They 
are nothing to me. I am concerned with hav- 
ing a good time, of making the most of this life. 



134 THE LIVING CHRIST 

I attend to things here and now." You may 
have, ought to have "a good time" within certain 
limitations. But when you come to make so 
much of "a good time" as to obscure the back- 
ground of earnest living, you have reached the 
point of weakness and folly. Such a life will 
never rise to grandeur, it will never become 
heroic, it will never work itself out in forms of 
benevolence, philanthropy and unselfishness. 

Who is it that makes the background? It is 
the Christ, who brings God to us and us to God, 
whose mountains of righteousness, of love, of 
joy, send down their streams to water all the 
thirsty places of the soul. 



THE UPPER AND THE UNDER 



THE UPPER AND THE UNDER 

The most casual observation leads to the dis- 
covery that everything in this world that has 
an upper, has an under, also. The wonders of 
the earth are not found lying round loosely, on 
the top of it. The energies that combine to 
cause the pull and push of things are not seen, 
like a windmill spinning over our heads, whose 
revolutions are visible and easily calculated. 
The world's explanation is not found on the 
covers of the great volume that has been pub- 
lished. Its ultimate purpose is not hieroglyphed 
on the mountain tops, or flung out in raised 
letters on the sky. The formative, causative, 
ruling forces, are under, pursuing their mission, 
not in the open day, with all the world as 
spectators, but in invisible chambers, where the 
presence of man is not allowed. 

Were you to ask a genuine Yankee for a defi- 
nition of a tree, he would probably tell you that 
it is a thing about fifty feet high, stuck in the 
137 



138 THE LIVING CHRIST 

ground, indigenous almost anywhere, shaped 
very much like a full-spread parasol of the Japan- 
ese type, affording an excellent shade in hot 
weather for lazy people, and, frequently, used 
for heating purposes in stoves and furnaces. 
This is the explanation of one who* examines the 
shell of things. But to the man intent on 
knowing what is under the outward appearances 
of things, this account of the tree would seem 
quite unsatisfactory. In a more thorough in- 
vestigation of the subject, he would tear away 
the bark, and hew into its woody trunk, sud- 
denly opening to view thousands of water 
sluices, beautifully cut, rivers running up and 
rivers running down; and, what would be the 
most wonderful of all, he would discover that 
these perpendicular rivers are worked by an en- 
gine, the place of whose! power he cannot even 
guess. This mysterious force he crystalizes 
into the term, life. "I have it," he says ; "the up- 
per of the tree is appearance, the under is life. ,, 
What is a flower? The man who defines 
things from the top says, "It is a kind of posy, to 
be found in gardens, hothouses, and along 
babbling brooks — very pretty to look at, sweet- 
smelling, used largely by young men who wish 



THE UPPER AND THE UNDER 139 

to elicit special interest from the fairer sex, as a 
buttonhole bouquet." But it is possible to have 
a profounder knowledge of the flower. He who 
has learned the habits, structure and uses of 
flowers, who has discovered their relation to 
each other, their mutual affinities, and their end- 
less diversities, so that he can arrange, classify 
and designate by distinctive characters and 
names, the different kinds which are scattered in 
infinite profusion over the earth, in short, he 
who has found the underlying principle of the 
flower, has made a more satisfactory acquaint- 
ance with it than he who seesi no other use for 
it than to be made into nosegays. 

The earth, what is it? The man who manages 
the telegraph and the "Limited Express," good 
for a mile a minute, says, "It is a round thing, 
continually on 'the go/ fond of taking trips 
round the sun, always on time, covered with 
land and water, inhabited by beings, who, as a 
general thing, enjoy their palates more than 
their brains, and are engaged in agriculture, 
manufacturing, commerce, fighting and fretting." 
This is what the man on a "flyer," sees, as he 
looks out of the car window upon the world. 

But there is an under earth that infinitely sur- 



140 THE LIVING CHRIST 

passes the one that a casual observer beholds. 
It is the earth of thei chemist, the geologist, the 
mineralogist, the biologist, the archeologist, 
the philosopher, the historian and the theolo- 
gian. Each of these in his own way is explor- 
ing realms whose beauty and magnificence 
greatly surpass that outward, tangible world 
in which the unreflective mind ranges. 

It is the part of thoughtfulness to discover the 
under force of the world and ascertain its attri- 
butes and nature. It may be said, I think, with- 
out fear of contradiction, that the question 
which agitates the intellectual world, more than 
any other, is the one in respect to the order of 
the two forces which we denominate the upper 
and the under. Matter or mind, which? All 
phenomena have their ground in one or the 
other. But the question of the hour is, which 
takes the precedence? In other words, which is 
the under force, mind or matter? There is one 
class of investigators who tell us, the under 
force is matter, and the upper force mind ; that 
all life, whether it be that of man, or beast, vege- 
table or fowl, is the outcome of matter; that 
matter is not only our mother but -our grand- 
mother, as well as the beginning and end of hu- 



THE UPPER AND THE UNDER 141 

man destiny. There is another and larger class 
who maintain that the under force is mind. 

Do you think it is immaterial how this ques- 
tion is settled? Are we to be unconcerned as to 
the final issue of this discussion? Let our con- 
victions become fixed in the belief that matter 
is the under force, and at once the world is 
stripped of its beauty, the stars of their glory, 
and man of his virtue and greatness? To con- 
clude that this vast and magnificent framework 
of things is the resultant of a happy and for- 
tuitous concourse of the original elements; to 
say that thought is only a subtle chemistry, is to 
strike a blow at the very foundation of man's 
hopes, aspirations and noblest aims. This ten- 
dency in speculation is to be met by emphasiz- 
ing the superiority and permanency and spirit- 
uality of the under forces of the world and life. 
Force becomes more attenuated, subtle and im- 
palpable as we proceed downwards. Analysis, 
carried ever so far, always stops short of the pro- 
ducing cause. It is able to give us the condi- 
tions of existence, but never reveals the Hand 
that fashions life from the conditions. Condi- 
tions are not causes. The stimuli of the seed, are 
water, air, heat, soil ; these are the conditions of 



142 THE LIVING CHRIST 

its growth, but not the cause. There is a certain 
something back of all, which manipulates these 
conditions and uses them to the end of growth. 
This hidden power we call life. But no micro- 
scope has revealed it and probably never will re- 
veal it. The conditions of a house are the trees 
of the forest ; but they are not the cause of the 
existence of the house. The under force or 
cause,, in this case, is the mind of man. 

The greats error of materialism is to assume 
that conditions are causes. Heat is the condi- 
tion of digestion ; but heat itself does not digest. 
There is a finer force in the background some- 
where, which manages that matter. As we de- 
scend along the line of the under forces, we find 
them manifesting, more and more, the preroga- 
tives of directing and shaping energies. Instead 
of showing signs of passivity and helplessness, 
they seem to be clothed with soul-like qualities. 

Mr. Huxley, looking down the tube of a 
powerful microscope, upon a tiny speck of mat- 
ter, the egg of a little water animal, the common 
salamander, describes what he sees. "Strange 
possibilities," he tells us, "lie dormant in that 
minute spheroid. Let a moderate supply of heat 
reach it, and the plastic matter undergoes 



THE UPPER AND THE UNDER 143 

changes so rapid, and yet so steady and pur- 
poselike in their succession, that one can com- 
pare them only to those operated by a skilled 
operator upon a formless lump of clay. One is 
almost involuntarily possessed of the notion 
that some more subtle aid to vision would show 
the hidden artist with his plan before him, striv- 
ing with skilful manipulation to perfect his 
work." So near has this observer come to a 
creator, that he can only describe what he sees 
in terms of creation. It seems as if he had come 
within a hair's breadth of the operations of the 
universal Mind, in developing life from a 
structureless sac. 

Science itself encourages a belief in mind as 
the under force. But we are told that mind is 
a very unsubstantial thing. We can neither 
touch, taste, nor handle it. It eludes our grasp. 
But how much more palpable than mind is that 
entity which we call matter? What is matter in 
itself? Who will define its essence? All our 
knowledge of it is through certain sensations 
which have passed in through the windows of 
the soul, to be interpreted by the mind itself. It 
is not the thing, in itself, that the mind takes 
cognizance of, but the impression from without, 



144 THE LIVING CHRIST 

made upon the mind, which is but an image of 
the external object; and this image is not me- 
chanically produced, as a human figure on a 
photographer's plate, but by the operation of 
the mind itself, in a process that is organic and 
spiritual in its character. The connection be- 
tween subject and object, between mind and the 
external world, as represented in consciousness, 
is a living connection. The mind is not a tabula 
rasa on which external objects inscribe them- 
selves in a purely mechanical manner. It is 
rather a thought process by which we know the 
external world. Hence we distinguish the not 
self from self, by inference. That there is a 
world of sensible objects is a conclusion reached 
by the understanding. The most certain entity 
with which we have to deal, after all, is mind. 
It is far from being unsubstantial ; it is the most 
abiding, permanent and indestructible force 
of which we have any knowledge. 

Personal identity is an assured article of our 
faith. If there is one belief from which you can- 
not possibly escape, it is, that you are the same 
person now that you were when you first woke 
to a state of consciousness. You are. thoroughly 
convinced that the person whom you called "I" 



THE UPPER AND THE UNDER 145 

ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, is the same one, 
whom you, to-day, designate by that title. 
Nevertheless, you are positive that you have 
not the same body, at the present time, that you 
had when a child. You may have lost that 
a half dozen times, but your mind has stood by 
you. The body has not a material continuity, 
through a whole lifetime. All its constituent 
parts are in a constant state of flux and change. 
"The body," one has said, "is more like a river 
running by, than like a body, remaining con- 
stant in the constancy of its material." 

The mind is the only substantial part of us. 
It holds on its way, from, the beginning to the 
end of life, in one unbroken history. Like the 
Eternal himself, our personality never leaves or 
forsakes us. Such being the wonderful nature of 
the human mind, it is easy for us to pass to a be- 
lief in an infinite Mind. As we go down, then, 
towards that ultimate force, upon which every- 
thing above leans, we find it exhibiting more and 
more the characteristics of mind. Organization 
meets us at every step ; and organization implies 
the existence of a power that rules, disposes, 
penetrates and vivifies ; and that power must be 
mind. 



146 THE LIVING CHRIST 

We are all familiar with the fact that there 
have been certain philosophers who claimed 
that there is nothing else in the universe but 
mind. "We cannot," they said, "attribute ex- 
ternal existence to that which causes our sensa- 
tions." The common sense of men never 
adopted this theory. You never can make the 
man who saws wood for a living believe that a 
stone post is only a stubborn thought, or that 
the bite of a dog is only an over-familiarity with 
a sharp, incisive, four-footed conception of the 
brain. When a man tumbles down-stairs, he is 
very well satisfied that the bumps he receives 
cannot be resolved into the sort about which 
the phrenologists have so much to say. You 
cannot make a man believe that the scolding 
of his wife is simply the hubbub of certain ideas 
which are henpecked. There is no danger that 
this sort of idealism will prevail, to any extent, 
in this practical age. 

We are not such lunatics as to deny the real- 
ity of matter. Unreservedly, we yield our assent 
to the evidence of the senses. No one shall be 
able to shake our faith in substantial existence 
of the farms we till, the houses we live in, or the 
hills we climb. While we acknowledge all this, we 



THE UPPER AND THE UNDER 147 

reach the conclusion, through constantly recur- 
ring observation, that the under force is a plan- 
ning, organizing, controlling energy. And, ac- 
cording to all analogies with which we are 
familiar, that force which plans, organizes and 
controls, is, and must be, from the nature of 
things, mind. Every effect must have an ade- 
quate cause ; a design must have a designer ; and 
thought must have a thinker. But this world in 
which we live bears the impress of thought; 
therefore there must be a mind, of which this 
thought is the expression. "Without thought 
in the ground of things," says Trendelenburg, 
"the organic cannot exist." This fact 
forms the groundwork of education, in 
its broadest sense. The importance, signifi- 
cance, inspiration and glory of education rest 
or* the assumption that mind is the under force. 
Let it be proved, beyond controversy, that mat- 
ter is the under force, and a death-blow is given 
to all higher forms of education. It would be 
shorn of its worth and dignity. It would be 
brought to the verge of insipidity. 

Suppose all being and life start in matter, 
without personal and intelligent direction. 
Assume for a moment that that highly 



148 THE LIVING CHRIST 

seasoned, yet senseless substance, called proto- 
plasm, lies at the basis of created things. Then 
the first line in the opening page of the book of 
life would read, in' the beginning, a soft, nitro- 
geneous gelatine, which for tlie sake of invest- 
ing the subject with mystery, we give the name 
protoplasm. With this the under force, what 
is education, viewed in its relation to the 
sources of knowledge? It is an attempt to dis- 
cover the ways and methods by which proto- 
plasm, or jelly, transforms itself into the light of 
day, the verdure of the, fields, and the genius of 
men. With the under force gelatine, the edu- 
cated man would be one, who-, in tracing back 
his history to its primal source, would find him- 
self growing softer and softer, till he reached 
his original home, where* he would shake like 
New England "hasty pudding." As we move 
down towards that border-land, where darkness 
gives place to light, in creation, we do> not get 
the impression that either stupidity or insensibil- 
ity or gristle is at the cause-end of things, while 
men and angels are at the effect-end. We do 
not see any reason why creation is to be likened 
to some of our Western roads, which are said 
to be, in their later development, a boulevard, 



THE UPPER AND THE UNDER 149 

while in their earlier history they were a squir- 
rel-track running up a tree. Whether this is a 
true account of our Western roads, I will not 
undertake to say; but I will venture to affirm, 
that no Western man has had the audacity to 
use the grasshopper logic of making the in- 
ference that the squirrel-track was the cause of 
the boulevard. As I apprehend the subject, 
education, in its broadest generalization, is to 
trace the evidence of th§ Mind of the universe 
in forms- of creation. But if there is no mind in 
the universe, whose workings are to be traced, 
then the broader purpose of education must be 
surrendered. The inspiring thought, that, in 
acquiring a knowledge of the order and consis- 
tency of nature, we are coming in contact with 
the infinite Mind, must be summarily abandoned. 
Henceforth we must range through the fields of 
the visible world, with the dispiriting and sicken- 
ing consciousness that, whatever of beauty and 
order are revealed to us is the result of some 
happy accidents in the beginning of things. 

Knowledge, having no relation to an intelli- 
gent First Cause, can have no other value than 
the practical uses to which it can be put. If 
there is no mind in the universe, then simply 



150 THE LIVING CHRIST 

utilitarian motives, must be the mainspring of 
our activities for enlightenment and culture. 
We study for the personal advantage that ac- 
crues to us. Under this condition, it would be 
regarded as a piece of extravagance and folly for 
a person to spend time in studying anything that 
could not be actually utilized in ministering to 
the body. When it is fully settled that the un- 
der force is matter, it would be well to put upon 
all our school-books, the initial letters B. B. the 
short for bread and butter, that the ultimate end 
of an education may be kept constantly in mind 
by the pupil. Let the under force be matter, I 
say, and our noble system of education, whose 
branching and diversified interests cover every 
field of knowledge, will finally terminate in a 
shriveled, flaccid, half-starved idea, bearing, per- 
haps, the incongruous title "scientific." 

What is chemistry? It is God's thought about 
the properties of elementary substances, and 
their mutual combinations. What, then, is it to 
study chemistry? It is to trace that thought as 
it is outlined in the primary elements of nature. 
What is geology? It is God's thought about the 
formation and structure of the earth"; his thought 
about its rocks, strata, soil, minerals, organic 



THE UPPER AND THE UNDER 151 

remains, and the changes which it has under- 
gone. What is it to study geology? It is to 
trace that thought as it has thus unfolded in 
building a world. What is physiology? It is 
God's thought about living bodies, their func- 
tions and powers. What is its study? It is a 
search for that thought. This world is the 
thought of God made objective to himself ; hence, 
when we study and analyze the world, we are 
tracing the almighty thought of Him who made 
the world. 

Whatever we assume as the first cause, deter- 
mines the scope and purpose of education, and 
the nature of morality. Teach that the first 
cause is material, and true philosophy is pulled 
up by the roots ; theology is disemboweled of all 
substance; morality is turned into a burlesque; 
the breath of all natural piety is frozen ; and the 
only message to man is the message of despair. 

How important for us, as educators, to lift up 
the grand, omnipotent truth that God, a free, 
all-wise, infinitely powerful and holy being, is 
the first cause, or under force, upon which rests 
the superstructure of the world and all its teem- 
ing life! 



A NEGLECTED CHRISTIAN DUTY 



A NEGLECTED CHRISTIAN DUTY 

There is a time when laughter is right, when 
it is a duty, and when it would be wrong not to 
laugh. It has been said that laughter is dying 
out among men. If so, it is a pity. It is quite 
possible that we are not accustomed to look up- 
on laughter in this way. We think that it is 
an agreeable exercise but are not apt to class it 
among the duties, like honesty, or kindness. 
"A merry heart doeth good like medicine." 
This goes beyond the mere act of laughter, to 
its effect. The word translated medicine is very 
interesting in the Hebrew ; it means to take off 
the bandages. We thrust away the dressings 
when the wound is healed. Hence the word 
does not really mean medicine, but a final cure. 
The merry heart helps to forward a cure: and 
this, whether the trouble be physical, mental or 
spiritual. 

A physician always tries to< keep his patient 
in good spirits; and when he discerns that his 
155 



156 THE LIVING CHRIST 

patient is weighed down by some mental burden, 
he wisely seeks to lighten that, as well as to ad- 
minister remedies to the body. 

Addison says, Cheerfulness is the best pro- 
moter of health. Repinings and secret mur- 
murs of heart give imperceptible strokes to those 
delicate nerve fibers of which the vital parts are 
composed, and wear out the machinery, insen- 
sibly, not to mention those violent ferments 
which they stir up in the blood, and those irregu- 
lar, disturbed emotions which they raise in the 
animal spirits. He says that he can scarce re- 
member, in his own observation, to have met 
with many old men, who "wear well," as we 
say, that had not a certain amount of hu- 
mor and cheerfulness of heart. The truth is, 
health and cheerfulness mutually beget each 
other. 

There is a distinction between mirth and 
cheerfulness. Mirth is short and transient; 
cheerfulness, fixed and permanent. The man 
of mere mirth has his ups and downs. At one 
time he is in the clouds; at another, in the 
dumps; now evelated in his feelings, now de- 
pressed. Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that 
breaks through the clouds and glitters for a mo- 



A NEGLECTED CHRISTIAN DUTY 157 

ment. Cheerfulness keeps up a constant, clear 
light in the mind. 

In the world at large, cheerfulness is an im- 
mense gift. What a sad thing it would be if 
it were altogether crowded out. One of the 
expressions of cheerfulness is laughter. Think 
of a world of human beings with no laughter, 
men and women wearing, everywhere and al- 
ways, grave, serious, solemn faces, with no re- 
laxing of the sternness on any occasion. Think 
of the laughter of childhood departing from the 
world, and the laughter of youth,— how dull and 
dreary life would be ! A man that never smiles 
is morbid. He has lost the joy-cords out of his 
life. He has trained himself to think only of un- 
pleasant things, to look only and always at the 
dark side. He has accustomed himself so< long 
to sadness, that the muscles of his face become 
set with hard, fixed lines and cannot relax them- 
selves. His thoughts of life are gloomy, and the 
gloom has entered his soul and darkened his 
eyes. What a delightful habit to take a cheerful 
view of things ! 

A farmer's boy once asked this question : 
"What is an optimist?" "Well, John," replied 
the father, "ye know I can't give ye a dictionary 



158 THE LIVING CHRIST 

meanin' of that word any more 'n I can of a great 
many others. But I 've got a kind of idee what 
it means. Probably you don't remember your 
uncle Henry: but I guess if there was ever an 
optimist, he was one. Things were always 
comin' out right with Henry, and especially any- 
thing that he had to do* : it wa' n't a-goin' to be 
hard, — t'was jest kind of solid pleasant. 
Take hoein' corn, now. If anything kind of 
took the tucker out of me, 't was hoein' corn in 
the hot sun. But in the field, 'long about the 
time I begun to lag back a little, Henry, he 'd 
look up an' say: — 'Good, Jim. When we get 
these two • rows hoed, an' eighteen more, the 
piece '11 be half done.' An' he 'd say it in such a 
kind of cheerful way, that I could n't 'a' ben any 
more tickled if the piece had been all done, — 
an' the rest would go light enough. But the 
worst thing we had to do (hoein' corn was a 
picnic to it) was pickin' stones. No end to* that, 
on our old farm, if we wanted to raise anything. 
When we wa' n't hurried and pressed at some- 
thing else, there was always pickin' stones to do : 
and there wa' n't a plowin' but what brought a 
fresh crop of stones to the top, an' -seems as if 
the pickin' had all to be done over again. Well 



A NEGLECTED CHRISTIAN DUTY 159 

sir, you 'd 'a' thought, to hear Henry, that there 
wa' n't any fun in the world like pickin' stone. 
He looked at it in a different way from anybody 
I ever see. Once, when the corn was all hoed, 
and the grass wa' n't fit to cut yet, an' I 'd got 
all laid out to go a-fishin', and father he up and 
set us to pickin' stones up on the west piece, an* 
I was about ready to cry, Henry, he says: — 
'Come on, Jim. I know where there's lots of 
nuggets. An' what do you s'pose now? That boy 
had a kind of a game that that field was 'what 
he called 'a plasser mining field' ; and he got me 
into it, and I could 'a' sworn I was in Californy 
all day — I had such a nice time. 'Only,' says 
Henry, after we 'd got through the day's work, 
'the way you get rich with these nuggets is to 
get rid of them, instead of to get them.' That 
somehow did n't strike my fancy, but we 'd had 
play instead of work, anyway, an' a great lot of 
stones had been rooted out of the field. An', as 
I said before, I can't give ye any dictionary 
definition of optimism ; but if your Uncle Henry 
wa' n't an optimist, I do n't know what one is." 
This is the lesson: the bright, cheerful man 
makes a cheerful world around him. The mo- 
rose, fretful, disjointed, critical, dyspeptic, 



160 THE LIVING CHRIST 

gloomy man creates a world about him which is 
the reflection of his own mood. Some people 
have the power of making summer wherever 
they go. They infuse light and joy and happi- 
ness and beauty into everybody they meet. If 
you meet one of them on the street, he will 
throw a stream of sunlight into your soul, that 
will light up the whole day. One has power of 
making the best of everything, of not only look- 
ing at the bright, but the brightest, side of 
things. He finds peace and comfort every- 
where. The servants are all attentive. He is 
never snubbed. Everybody is considerate. 
Another is always insulted, cut, snubbed, 
slighted, neglected. We get pretty nearly what 
we give to the world ; and we are treated about 
as we treat others. If others are uncharitable, 
neglectful and unkind in their treatment of us, 
it is, usually, but the reflection of our own bad 
tempers and lack of charity. Beecher once said : 
"Away with these fellows who go howling 
through life, and all the while pass for birds of 
paradise." He that cannot laugh and be cheer- 
ful should look to himself. He should fast and 
pray until his face breaks forth into light. Some 
have an idea that they comfort people when 



A NEGLECTED CHRISTIAN DUTY 161 

they groan over them. Don't drive a hearse 
through a man's soul. When you bind up a 
broken bone of the soul, and need splints, do not 
make them of cast iron. 

"Many years ago," says Oliver Wendell 
Holmes, "in walking among the graves at Mount 
Auburn, I came upon a plain, upright marble 
slab which bore an epitaph of only four words, 
but, to my mind, they meant more than any of 
the labored inscriptions on the surrounding 
monuments, — 'She was so pleasant/ This was 
all, and it was enough. That one note revealed 
the music of a life of which I knew and asked 
nothing more." 

Dr. Griffin, when he was president of Andover 
Theological Seminary, was much troubled by 
the gloomy, sad and glum appearance of the 
theological students. One day he called them 
together, and said he wanted them, to practise 
laughing exercises every day, and, at once, gave 
them an example, by an outbreak of roaring 
laughter, insisting upon their joining. He did 
not have to wait long for a response : the glum- 
mest of them) soon out-laughed the doctor him- 
self. This had a wonderful effect upon the stu- 
dents. 



162 THE LIVING CHRIST 

There is a statement in Paul's writings in re- 
gard to giving, that is very instructive. He says, 
the Lord loveth a cheerful giver. It is not sim- 
ply that he loveth a giver ; but a cheerful giver. 
He likes to have a man come up smiling, when 
he puts in his contribution. I read, some time 
ago, about a mission congregation in Jamaica, 
composed of colored people. One Sunday a 
collection was to be taken for missionary pur- 
poses. One of the brethren was appointed to 
preside. But before they proceeded to business 
they made the following resolutions: "(i) Re- 
solved, That we will all give. (2) Resolved, 
That we will give as the Lord has prospered us. 
(3) Resolved, That we will give cheerfully/' 
Then the contribution began, each person, ac- 
cording to custom, walking up to deposit his gift 
under the eye of the presiding officer. One 
of the most well-to-do members hung back un- 
til it was painfully noticeable. When at length 
he deposited his gift, the brother at the table re- 
marked, "Dat is 'cording to de fust resolushun, 
but not 'cordin to de second." The member re- 
tired, angrily, to his seat, taking back his money ; 
but conscience or pride kept working, till he 
came back and doubled his contribution, with a 



A NEGLECTED CHRISTIAN DUTY 163 

crabbed, "Take dat, den." The brother at the 
table again spoke : "Dat may be 'cording to de 
fust and second resolushun, but it is n't 'cord- 
ing to de third." The giver, after a little, ac- 
cepted the rebuke, and came a third time with a 
still larger gift and a good-natured face. Then 
the faithful president expressed his gratification 
thus: "Dat's 'cording to all de resolushuns. 

It is magnificent to be a cheerful giver. 
When a man gives as if he were glad to give, it 
has a wonderfully bracing effect upon others. 
We ought to have such an interest in the vari- 
ous objects to which we contribute, that we 
would feel it a disappointment not to have the 
opportunity to give. In our benevolences we 
are to respond according to the spirit and intent 
of "all the resolutions." 

In emphasizing the value of cheerfulness, by 
means of various illustrations, I wish to say that 
it is not a superficial thing; it is not something 
that we put on for the occasion, and doff when 
the company goes home. Cheerfulness is rooted 
and grounded in the soul, and is the expression 
of the joy of living. It is that quality that keeps 
the soul turned toward the light. Here is a 
little potted rose-bush in the window of a sick- 



164 THE LIVING CHRIST 

room. What do you discover? You find that 
the rose on that bush insists on looking towards 
the light. Suppose you turn it round towards 
the darkness ; it will not remain long in that sit- 
uation; it will twist itself back, until its face is 
again toward the light. It will not look into 
the darkness. Cheerfulness is like the rose; it 
will not allow itself to look toward any gloom, 
but will instantly turn from it. It will not live 
in shadows and discouragements. The founda- 
tion of cheerfulness is right relations. When a 
man is in right relation with himself, in right re- 
lation with his fellow men, and in right relation 
with God, he has the prerequisites for a constant 
habit of cheerfulness. Let these relations be 
disturbed and broken, and there will be discord 
and schism in the soul, which will preclude the 
possibility of genuine cheerfulness. Let there 
be those whom you do not love, and with whom 
you will have nothing to do, and there will be 
poison at the roots of your life, which will check 
and disturb your happiness. 

Remember, now, that all true Christianity is 
cheerful. Christ taught no long-faced, gloomy 
theology; he taught the gospel of gladness and 
good cheer. His doctrines were touched with 



A NEGLECTED CHRISTIAN DUTY 165 

the sunlight, and drew lessons from the flowers 
of the field, the birds of the air, the beasts of the 
fields, and happy, romping children are in them. 
True piety is as cheerful as the day. The time 
was, when men believed that Christ never smiled. 
That day is past. We believe now that he had 
the most joyful soul that ever tabernacled in the 
flesh. About the last thing he said to his dis- 
ciples was, that he would leave his joy with them, 
and he affirmed it was a kind of joy that could 
not be taken away from them. No idea is more 
fatuous than that a change of circumstances will 
make a man cheerful. It is not outward sur- 
roundings but inward peace that gives the 
merry heart, that doeth good like medicine. 

But here are the sorrows that come to us, 
which are so keen and heavy. What now? 
Grief should not crush cheerfulness out of our 
life. Along the shore you will sometimes come 
upon fresh-water springs which bubble up on 
the edge of the salt sea. The tides roll over 
them and bury them out of sight for the time, 
but when the brackish floods ebb again, the 
springs are found sweet as ever. So, after the 
deepest sorrow, the heart's fountains of joy 
should be found, pouring out their streams of 
gladness. 



166 THE LIVING CHRIST 

Some people seem to think that it would be 
disloyalty to their friends who are gone from 
them, ever to be happy again, But this is not 
true. Of course there is a sense in which we 
never get over sorrow. Our life is never the 
same after a sore bereavement. We carry the 
marks forever. But they should not be 
marks of sorrow. There is a beatitude of the 
Master's which pronounces those who mourn 
blessed or happy, because they have God's com- 
fort. God's comfort is heaven's joy enter- 
ing into the human soul. It is not an 
anesthetic, which makes men insensible 
to- pain or loss; it is a benediction, which 
transmutes pain into joy, and loss into gain. 
Sorrow healed by Christ's wise, skilful treatment, 
leaves no ugly scars, no bleeding wounds. 
Nothing beautiful is lost in the grief which 
Christ comforts. The sweetest songs sung on 
earth are those learned in the darkened room 
of trial. 

We need to put cheerfulness down among 
Christian duties. Nor is it one of the minor 
duties. There may be no direct commandment 
to the effect, Thou shalt laugh, or- thou shalt 
be cheerful ; but it is implied in the teaching of 



A NEGLECTED CHRISTIAN DUTY 167 

the Master, and involved in such words of Paul, 
as "'Rejoice in the Lord away : and again I say, 
Rejoice/' Let us, not give the impression that 
we have a peevish, doleful religion. Let us not 
go moping and grumbling around, as though 
the Christian graces ever assumed that form. 
There is sunshine in religion; but there is no 
sunshine for those who persist in; keeping their 
shutters barred. Cheerfulness is not gained by 
asking for it, but only by acting for it : we must 
walk with Christ if we would walk in the sun- 
shine. 

There is a tiny poem, expressive of this sub- 
ject, that I quote, for the benefit of little folks 
and big folks. 

"If I knew the box where the smiles are kept, 

No matter how large the key, 
Or strong the bolt, I would try so hard — 

'T would open, I know, for me. 

Then over the land and sea, broadcast, 

I'd scatter the smiles to play; 
That children's faces might hold them fast, 

For many and many a day. 

If I knew a box that was large enough 
To hold all the frowns I meet, 



168 THE LIVING CHRIST 

I would like to gather them, every one, 
From nursery, school and street. 

Then, folding and holding, I'd pack them in, 

And, turning the monster key, 
I'd hire a giant to drop the box, 

To the depths of the deep, deep sea." 



THE POWER OF THE RESURREC- 
TION 

FROM THE VIEW-POINT OF THE SUPER- 
NATURAL 



THE POWER OF THE RESURRECTION 

FROM THE VIEW-POINT OF THE SUPER- 
NATURAL 

From many points of view, the resurrection 
may be regarded as a power. Just here, let us 
consider the power of the resurrection of Christ 
as reenforcing and emphasizing our idea of the 
supernatural, concerning which we should have 
distinct, certain and positive thoughts. 

It makes a great difference with a man 
whether he conceives himself living in a world 
with or without the supernatural belonging to it. 
As a matter of fact there are thousands who 
live as if the supernatural were something unreal 
and utterly unsubstantial. There are also those 
who go so far as to say that anything super- 
natural is an impossibility. We are to remem- 
ber that the question of the supernatural is not, 
merely, one concerning miracles; whether this 
or that particular miracle ever occurred ; whether 
Christ healed the sick, raised the dead or stilled 
171 



172 THE LIVING CHRIST 

the tempest. The supernatural has a wider 
range, and includes such questions as these: Is 
there a supernatural being — God? Is there a 
supernatural government of the world? Is 
there a supernatural relation of God and man, 
so that God and man may have communion with 
one another? Is there a supernatural revela- 
tion? Has that revelation culminated in a 
supernatural person — Christ? Is there a super- 
natural work in the souls of men? Is there a 
supernatural hereafter? These questions imply- 
that the supernatural, if it is anything at all, is 
not alone that which is miraculous, in the strict 
sense, but that which we are constantly dealing 
with, which is here, there and everywhere. You 
are a supernatural being. You may think the 
statement somewhat extraordinary. But where 
shall we draw the line between the supernatural 
and the natural? We must draw it between per- 
sonal and impersonal beings. What is an im- 
personal being? It is a thing acted upon and 
directed according to certain fixed and uniform 
laws. It must be thus and so, and not other- 
wise. What is a personal being? It is a being 
endowed with a rational free will; and this, in 
its essence, is that which is supernatural. Not 



POWER OF THE RESURRECTION 173 

that it can originate power, but it can direct and 
exert it. Here are all the forces in nature; if 
left to themselves, they move in a path fixed 
for them ; they turn neither to the right hand nor 
the left. But you come along and lay hold of 
some of these forces, and divert them from their 
natural tendencies; you use them, and make 
them produce effects, which nature, left to its 
fixed course, would not have produced. What 
have you done? You have done that which is 
above nature; you have made a sawmill, or a 
factory, or a spinning-jenny. These things 
neither grow nor develop by means of an im- 
personal energy, but rather depend upon a free, 
rational will. You have asserted your sov- 
ereignty over nature, in a certain measure. 
You have been acting in the sphere of the super- 
natural. In a limited sense, you are a super- 
natural being. Civilization itself is simply the 
effect of the supernatural in man. And you will 
observe that you have not disturbed the uni- 
formity of nature. By doing a supernatural 
work you have not interfered with, or arrested, 
or broken a single law in the natural world. 
You have simply introduced a force originating 
in your will, which is superior to that force in 



174 THE LIVING CHRIST 

nature, and, therefore, it had to yield to your 
wishes. 

There are 1 people who tell us that God never 
does anything that is supernatural. How is 
that? we inquire. Oh, the laws of nature are uni- 
form; they never change; there can be neither 
breaks nor suspensions ; they keep right on, the 
same yesterday, to-day and forever. Suppose 
we actually know this to be the fact, (which we 
do not), it would not prevent or hinder God from 
performing supernatural operations. If he were 
so handicapped that he could, do nothing over 
and above what nature does with its impersonal 
forces, then man, himself, is superior to the 
Being who made him, and would outclass him, 
in his achievements. If God cannot communi- 
cate with man and reveal himself to him in some 
special way, then man can do what God cannot 
do ; for he can communicate with others, and re- 
veal himself to> them, and make his wants 
known; and, furthermore, man has a capacity 
for receiving divine communications; and he 
looks longingly towards the heavens for 
recognition in his needs, and listens to 
hear a voice from the clouds, which shall ad- 
dress his soul. But God is so entangled and 



POWER OF THE RESURRECTION 175 

shackled with the natural order of things that 
he must remain dumb and speechless. He can- 
not even recognize the capacity he has given 
man for receiving communications; and thus 
negatives and stultifies himself at the very cen- 
ter of his handiwork. It is a strange conclusion 
to reach, that God has less freedom in the use 
of power than man has. It is very singular, 
that what is possible with man is impossible with 
God. Evidently Christ made a mistake when 
he said, "All things are possible with God." 

Certain methods are employed in the treat- 
ment of the supernatural. One method of treat- 
ment is, to deny that there is any such thing as 
the supernatural. There are men who tell us 
that what we call God is only nature. He is 
sometimes spoken of as the Great Nature, 
spelled with capitals. On this theory, the super- 
natural has disappeared and nature is all and is 
from everlasting. This is materialism, which 
recognizes nothing but nature going on in its 
invariable sequences of causal dependence, from 
all eternity. According to materialism, there 
is nothing in the universe but matter and force, 
in different modes of existence. As one ma- 
terialist has it, "the world is made of atoms and 



176 THE LIVING CHRIST 

ether, and there is no room for ghosts." An- 
other modestly says, "The world, to-day, is with- 
out mysteries !" By this he would have us un- 
derstand that there is nothing in existence, 
from the crystalization of a diamond to the char- 
acter of a saint, which cannot be investigated 
and explained by means of a crucible, a blow- 
pipe, a microscope, and a few other tools. 
Still another affirms that he has searched the 
heavens through and through with his telescope, 
and can find no God. An old farmer once an- 
swered this argument, by saying, "I have 
searched my sack of meal, through and through, 
and can find no' miller." Virchow, one of the 
greatest scientists that the world has known, 
says: "Of all kinds of dogmatism, the material- 
istic is the most dangerous, because it denies its 
own dogmatism and appears in the garb of 
science ; because it professes to rest on fact, when 
it is but speculation ; and because it attempts to 
annex territories to natural science, before they 
have been fairly conquered. ,, Materialism 
denies the existence of the supernatural, but it 
flies in the face and eyes of the facts of man's 
personality, which cannot be reached and ex- 
plained by the tools of a chemical laboratory. 



POWER OF THE RESURRECTION 177 

It annexes the territory of personality before 
it has conquered it. 

Another method of treatment of the super- 
natural is, to deny that God has made a revela- 
tion of himself in Jesus Christ and the Scrip- 
tures. The attitude in this case is very different 
from that of materialism. Men who, hold this 
view do not wish to' deny the existence of God, 
or the fact of a future life, or the essentials of 
Christian morality. In not a few cases, they 
strongly uphold these truths: — maintain them to 
be the true natural religion, in opposition to re- 
vealed. Jesus was a good man, probably the 
best man that ever lived upon the earth. But 
Jesus was not the Son of God, in any peculiar 
sense. He was the Son of God as other men 
are, only somewhat truer to the type. He was 
never sent into the world by the Father, as de- 
clared in the Gospels. The Gospels are simply 
a literature that was accumulated among an 
earnest people, but are in no sense a revelation 
of God's purpose to the world. The author of 
Robert Elsmere is an example of this class of 
thinkers. She does not admit even the possi- 
bility of a miracle. God can make no special 
revelation of himself. To be sure, God is 3 



178 THE LIVING CHRIST 

supernatural being, but he makes no display of 
it. God is a person, but he acts as if he were 
impersonal. He utters no voice for mankind; 
he has no message for his creatures other than 
that which is gathered from nature. He never 
inspired a prophet, or endowed an apostle with 
his Spirit. There is no supernatural Christian- 
ity. Whatever religion we have, we derive 
from nature. Nature is the source and 
spring of all our thoughts of God and of duty. 
Whatever language God has for man is indirect, 
through nature. There is no direct communica- 
tion between God and man. 

Now the remarkable thing about all this is, 
that many persons of this type of thinking have 
discovered a religion which is very beautiful. It 
is essentially Christian in all its main features. 
All the humanities which Christianity knows 
anything about are designated and emphatically 
recommended. Men are to be good and pure, 
to love the right and hate the wrong, and live 
the unselfish life. And when God is spoken of, 
he is clothed with warm and gracious attributes. 
We are made to understand that he is a very 
lovely being. Now the question arises, How did 
they come by this beautiful religion? How did 



POWER OF THE RESURRECTION 179 

they obtain this wonderful information concern- 
ing human duty and the character of God? 
The answer forthcoming would be that they 
derived their ideas from nature. They would 
say, "There is nothing supernatural about all 
this; there is no revelation and cannot be; we 
have been studying the forces and movements 
in nature, and watching the action and reaction 
of things; and from these we have derived our 
rich and voluminous conclusions concerning 
life and destiny." Let me give you a truer ac- 
count of the origin of this data of religion. 
They picked these doctrines out of the New 
Testament, either consciously or unconsciously. 
What they call "Natural Religion" has been re- 
enforced by breathing an atmosphere sur- 
charged with spiritual thoughts and ideas, which 
had a supernatural origin ; and these they have 
appropriated, without giving credit. It is a case 
of plagiarism on a large scale. And if their lot 
had been cast in a land, or a world, where they 
were left absolutely to their own wits to find out, 
through nature alone, moral and religious truth, 
they would have exhibited the same blindness 
and superstition which are everywhere found 
in places where the light of the Gospel has not 



180 THE LIVING CHRIST 

spread. What kind of a being is God, if he has 
fro other voice for humanity than that which is 
echoed in the material world which he has 
created? How shall we regard him if he has so 
shut himself out, by natural law, from direct con- 
tact with the spirits that seek him, that he can 
neither speak to them, answer their prayers, 
help them in trouble, nor even reach them by in- 
ward communications? What shall we think 
of him, if he remains self-enclosed, impassive, un- 
communicative towards his creatures, made in 
his own image? I will tell you the kind of God 
we have with these premises : he is a silent God! 
And a silent God is not one whose attributes 
are warm and gracious. He cannot be a God 
of love; he cannot be a father in any sense 
which lends attractiveness to the name. 
How can love be silent? How can a 
father remain in icy stillness and impassiveness 
when his children are crying for help? A silent 
God! The eternal hills are silent until the 
winds moan about their crests, and then they 
seem to return answer to the wail. But a silent 
God may be acted upon by the sighs and tears 
of ten thousand hungering, yearning hearts, and 
he is silent still. If God is deaf and dumb to hu- 



POWER OF THE RESURRECTION 181 

man need, what better are we than orphans, un- 
protected, uncared for, unloved, by the hand that 
made us? The truth about God is this: he so 
loved the world, that he gave his only begotten 
Son, that he might give us eternal life. The 
God that really is, breaks the silence and enters 
into fellowship with his children. Let us not 
have such hard and fast notions about the super- 
natural, that we virtually banish God from his 
own world, and from his own offspring. Paul 
tells us that there are things natural and things 
spiritual; things earthly and things heavenly. 
That empty tomb from which came forth the 
risen Lord, speaks volumes in confirmation of 
the fact that the natural world does not embrace 
all that is. It declares that we are in touch with 
supernatural verities; that the heavenly en- 
swathes us and wraps us round. Do you realize 
what an uplift it i^ for us to entertain a sense of 
the supernatural, to have the thought that God 
knows us, cares for us, loves us, and that the 
heavenly world is as real as the natural? I have 
often been surprised to find how utterly blank 
and empty, to some individuals, everything 
seems beyond the sphere of the senses. They 
live as though what we call the natural world is 



i82 THE LIVING CHRIST 

the bound and limit of all things. The prac- 
tical working of their thought is that 
everything is here and nothing beyond. 
They may have an abstract theory that embraces 
more ; but in their every-day view of things 
there is no vision of the supernatural. There 
are those who* lay their loved ones away, and 
then think of them as dead, beyond recall, as 
non-existent, and not as living in the power of 
the resurrection life. What a tremendous loss to 
the joy of living is incurred by letting the super- 
natural become an empty word! 

When death came to our Lord, it was not the 
end of life, but only an event in life. It did not 
close his being ; it was only an experience which 
that being underwent. Instead of being what 
men had feared it was, what men had hardly 
dared to hope that it was not, — the putting out 
of life — it was seen to be only the changing of 
the circumstances of life, without any real power 
over the real principle of life ; any more than the 
cloud has power over the sun, that it obscures ; 
or the ocean has power over the bubble of air 
that it buries fathoms deep, whose buoyant 
nature it cannot destroy, nor liinder from 
struggling towards, and sometime reaching 



POWER OF THE RESURRECTION 183 

to the surface of the watery mass that covers 
it. 

As death was but an event in his life, so it is 
but an event in our lives. It is an experience, 
not an end of life. Life goes on through it, and 
comes out unharmed. 

But some one says, this event, that we call 
death, constitutes a tremendous crisis in our life. 
It seems to break the continuity of things. No 
trace of life is left behind. The spirit has de- 
parted. But what is spirit, what is soul, when 
no longer clothed with the garment of flesh? Is 
it more than a dream, a shadow, a phantom? 
Is there anything of personality belonging to it? 
Does a man know himself, after the crisis, that 
we call death, is passed? Has he the same per- 
son as before? What says our hope, begotten 
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ? There is 
a resurrection of the dead ; and the central idea 
of the resurrection is identity. If there is a 
natural body, says the great apostle, there is 
also a spiritual body. "It is sown a natural 
body; it is raised a spiritual body." A body! 
not a phantom, not an unsubstantial thing, not a 
rare and subtile ghost, but a body! The spirit 
is clothed upon with a body ! And that means 



184 THE LIVING CHRIST 

not only continuity of life, but identity of life. 
The chasm is bridged, and the person passes to 
the other side, with all his intellectual, moral and 
spiritual belongings ; and these are provided with 
a medium for expression which is even better 
suited for its end than ; the earthly body, which 
is left to return to ashes. 

Thus, the man is the same man after as before 
the experience of death. He is the same man 
that once talked with you, and planned with you, 
and sat at your table and gave to you the wealth 
of his affection ; and this earthly environment, in 
which he once lived so tenderly and happily, is 
not forgotten by him. What a hope is this! 
What a mighty power to calm our fears and 
make us men! I know men may claim to 
have this hope, and then live on like dogs. I 
know men may claim to have it, and yet be 
slaves and cowards. The truth is, the hope is 
not theirs. When a man really has it, it makes 
him free. It breaks his tyrannies. It pre- 
pares him to undertake works that he can- 
not finish before the sun goes down. He forms 
plans of self-culture, or the development of truth, 
far too) vast for the earthly life of any Methuselah 
to finish; and yet he smiles calmly and works 



POWER OF THE RESURRECTION 185 

on, when men tell him that he will die before his 
work is done. Die! Shall not the sculptor 
sleep a hundred times before the statue he be- 
gins to-day is finished, and wake a hundred 
times, more ready for work, bringing to his 
work the strength and the visions that have 
come to him in his slumber? Die! What is 
death to this man but a shadow of a coming, 
greater life, in which shall be fulfilled the visions 
and ideals which he had in this life ! And why 
should he act now like a poor, timid, limited, 
temporary thing, not daring to begin to chisel 
his marble, for fear he will not be able to finish 
the statue in this life? 

There is no vague mysticism about the "prac- 
tice of immortality." It does not suggest an ex- 
istence of dreams and shadows. John Wesley 
was asked one morning, how he would live if 
he knew that he was living the last day of his 
life? Wesley answered that he would not 
change his plans in the least. "I would fulfill 
my numerous appointments. I would preach 
in the chapel in the forenoon, meet my Bible 
class at two o'clock, attend a funeral at four, and 
preach to my people in the evening. And then, 
after the last duty was performed, I would com- 



186 THE LIVING CHRIST 

mit my soul to God, go to bed, fall asleep, 
and wake up in glory." This is the practice 
of immortality — the practice of duty, day by 
day. 



WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY 

(AND OTHER THEMES) 



WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY 

(AND OTHER THEMES) 

One of the latest discoveries of modern 
science will help us to illustrate and enforce the 
necessity of being in tune with God, in order 
to hear his voice and understand his words. 
In wireless telegraphy, as perfected by Marconi, 
one of the most important features is the tuning 
of each receiver to its own transmitter, so- that 
it will respond to it alone. The tuning of the 
receiver to the transmitter is determined by the 
pitch of frequency with which certain electric 
waves pass through the ether. If, for instance, 
the transmitter radiates 500,000 vibrations a sec- 
ond, the receiver must be tuned to take mes- 
sages at 500,000 vibrations. According to the 
same principle, a tuning fork will respond only 
to another tuning-fork having exactly the same 
number of vibrations per second. A piano must 
be in tune in order to get music from! it. In 
this case the vibrations of each key may not be 
189 



190 THE LIVING CHRIST 

the same, but they must be multiples of .the 
same, so that vibrations of the different keys 
will coincide. If this arrangement of tuning 
were not necessary, so that a message could be 
sent by wireless telegraphy, whether the trans- 
mitter and receiver were in tune or not, there 
would be no such thing as secrecy in trans- 
mitting a message; the message would be as 
liable to be caught by one receiver as another. 
But it is the law of wireless telegraphy that the 
receiver and transmitter must be in tune, and 
consequently the message goes to* that re- 
ceiver and none other. Why is it then that one 
man does not, and another man does hear the 
voice of God, in nature, through conscience 
and the Bible? It is the difference in the re- 
ceiving apparatus. The one is attuned to the 
transmitter; the other is not. In a thousand 
ways, God is transmitting his thoughts to the 
world; and he who is attuned to his Maker 
will understand these messages, and enjoy the 
sacred intimacies of divine friendship. 

A wonderful feature of the Marconi trans- 
mitter is, that nothing can intercept or ob- 
struct the ethereal waves set in motion by it. 
They will pass through mountains as easily as 



WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY 191 

through an electric wire. They break down 
all barriers in their onward movement ; nothing 
can hinder or divert them. 

A man attuned to God can hear God's voice 
anywhere. There is no barrier that can in- 
terrupt or intercept the message. In the press 
of the multitude, amid the noise of traffic, at the 
bench, in the market-place, as well as in the 
sanctuary, God speaks to him and he hears, not 
with the ear of sense, but with the inner ear of 
the soul, which is responsive to the divine ut- 
terance, because it is tuned to its vibrations. 
Marconi found it a very difficult and delicate 
process in tuning the transmitter to the re- 
ceiver, so that there would be exact correspond- 
ence. It takes something of an expert to tune 
even a violin so that it will have the concert 
pitch. The strings are stretched to the breaking 
point in order to make them tuneful. To have 
the pitch and tone of Christ in our lives, is 
fraught with some difficulties. It may be, there 
is not a person on earth who is exactly in tune 
with God, so that the harmony is complete. 
We may regard ourselves as in process of 
tuning. The discords are gradually being taken 
out of life. The strings of our ill-sorted nature 



192 THE LIVING CHRIST 

are being streached sometimes to the breaking 
point in order to get the proper pitch. God 
is preparing us for perfect music hereafter. 

ANTE-MORTEM RELIGION 

Religion is something more than a nod of 
recognition to be given to Jesus Christ on our 
way to the realm unseen — more than an ad- 
mission ticket to be handed in at the door of 
heaven. 

There are people enough who believe in 
what 1 might be called a post-mortem religion. 
They have great admiration for a religion of 
the shroud, a religion of the coffin, a religion of 
the hearse, and a religion of the cemetery, but, 
apparently, no> appreciation of a religion for the 
bank, for the factory, for the warehouse, for the 
jeweler's shop and the broker's office. A great 
number of men scarcely ever attend any relig- 
ous service, except a funeral service. I ask one 
of these men to attend church and he replies, "I 
do not go to church ; but I go to funerals." 

What sort of an idea of the Christian religion 
does a man have who- keeps himself away from 
the sanctuary and confines his attention to 
mortuary occasions? The man who side-tracks 



WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY 193 

the Christian religion, is doomed to be a subor- 
dinate in the great affairs of the world. Do 
you know that there has never been a chief 
justice of the United States, who has not been 
a Christian man? Along the whole line, from 
Jay to Fuller, there has not been an exception. 
Every one of these great men, without a single 
departure, has been a member of some church, 
and he intended to be. 

Religion is, largely, an ante-mortem affair. 
What you are and what you are doing in this 
world, determines what you will be in the world 
to come. May I tell you some things to do? 
Pray in secret, at least once a day. How it lifts 
a man out of the dust and smoke of life, to raise 
his thoughts, even for a moment, to the Father 
of his spirit ! Read at least one chapter in the 
Bible every day. We do not go to this arsenal 
frequently enough, for the weapons with which 
to engage in the warfare of life. You will find 
something there for every emergency. Attend 
religious services regularly, not spasmodically. 
Remember that an empty pew has a depressing 
effect on all concerned. Give systematically, 
joyfully and generously. Subscribe, at least, for 
one religious paper and read it. Desire earn- 



194 THE LIVING CHRIST 

estly to be the means of saving some one who 
is out of Christ. Forsake every habit that 
stands between the soul and its larger growth in 
Christ. Test every amusement by the standard 
— does it help or hinder growth in Christ? 

DOING RELIGIOUS THINGS AUTOMATICALLY 

A distinguished psychologist has written that 
the great thing in all education is, to make the 
nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. 
What he calls the nervous system, the Scriptures 
would call heart. What does he mean by mak- 
ing our nervous system our ally? He would 
have us understand that the nervous system 
can be so educated that the path of least re- 
sistance will be in the direction of doing things 
that are good and useful. 

The heart can be educated into desiring and 
loving the things of the kingdom of God. 
When the psychologist says, "we must make 
automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as 
many useful actions as possible," he refers to 
education in schools. But the principle is not 
limited to this branch of education; it applies, 
with equal pertinency and force, -to religious 
education. 



WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY 195 

I wonder how many of our religious actions 
have taken on the automatic and habitual 
characteristic, so that pain comes from their non- 
performance, so that the cross has become our 
ally, so that not bearing it is the hardship. The 
great point is, that the doing of these things 
should begin in childhood. The presence of 
children in the church should begin as early as 
possible, that their church-going may become 
automatic and habitual. They should be so 
educated that the pain comes, not in going to 
church, but in not going. 

We should educate ourselves in acts of benev- 
olence until they become automatic and habit- 
ual. Our nervous system should be in such 
fine condition that it has become our ally in- 
stead of our enemy when an offering is to be 
made to the great missionary societies. That is, 
the pain of the thing ought to be entirely elimi- 
nated and succeeded by the pleasure of giving. 

THE SECRET OF A STABLE MINISTRY 

There is nothing that saves the decline of 
appreciation like better preaching. Here is the 
secret of a stable ministry, which, I believe, is 
no secret to you. Grow, my brother. There 



196 THE LIVING CHRIST 

is nothing that we are more interested in than 
a thing that grows, whether it be a plant in the 
garden, or a tree in the forest, or a minister in 
a parish. When a tree stops growing, we say, 
Why cumbereth it the ground? Cut it down. 
When a minister stops growing, we say, Why 
cumbereth he the parish? Release him. Some 
people want a new minister every year or two. 
They would not, if they could, secure a growing 
man. A growing minister is not the same man, 
from year to year, except in his personality. 
The people are having something new every 
year, with a growing pastor. Their thirst for 
a new deal in the ministry is quenched in the 
fact that things, new and old, are dealt out to 
them from the pulpit. If you want to give your 
people the benefit of a new minister, grow, my 
brother, grow! and again I say, grow! Grow 
in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ. Grow in the knowledge of the 
Scriptures and their interpretation. Grow 
in the love of your work in the ministry. 
Grow in your love for the people to* whom 
you minister. Grow into the spirit of your 
Master, and find all your blessedness in his 
service ! 



WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY 197 

PUBLIC OPINION THE REAL HEAD OF ANY 
CITY 

A good government in our cities ultimately 
means a good government at Washington. A 
bad government in our cities ultimately means 
a bad government at Washington. As is the 
city, so will be the nation. 

What is the municipal problem? It relates 
to an honest, non-partisan administration of 
affairs; to the execution of the laws, as we find 
them on our statute-books; to the suppression 
of vice and crime, and to the bringing about a 
condition in which the path of right doing shall 
be made easy, and the path of wrong doing 
shall be made hard. In what direction shall we 
look for the solution of this problem? Who 
are ultimately responsible for the good or bad 
condition of a city? 

When you diagnose a disease, you not only 
want to tell what is the matter, but what is the 
cause. In the work of civic reform, we some- 
times imagine that we have done all that can 
be done, when we have located the disease. It 
is a greater thing to know the cause that makes 
possible a bad condition. We say there ought 
to be a different state of things; it is imperative 



198 THE LIVING CHRIST 

that we begin civic house-cleaning. But where 
shall we begin, with the broom and scrubbing 
brush? Where shall we make the first applica- 
tion of soap and water? Some would say, give 
it to the men in authority. Let them receive a 
good raking and combing down. It is possible, 
by this method, that a few hairs might be 
straightened out from the tangled and matted 
locks. But, after all, the main trouble is not 
with the city government that happens to be 
in power. 

You stand by a roily creek and dip roily 
water with a leaky bucket. Under these condi- 
tions, your effort is somewhat protracted before 
you obtain pure, clear water fit for drinking 
purposes. You would better go up to the 
spring, at the head of the roily brook and drive 
out the herd of swine that are stirring up all 
the fuss. If our municipal creek is running 
roily water, we must go to the fountain at the 
head of the muddy stream, and stop the foolish- 
ness that is going on there. In other words, 
we must purify citzenship by driving out the 
cowardice and selfishness and indifference, 
which, like swine, are mussing up all our pure 
conceptions of civic life. 



WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY 199 

As citizens, we try to make it too easy for 
ourselves. We think, if we have good laws, a 
good city charter, and a good working system 
of government, it is safe to return to the peace- 
ful pursuits of life, and leave the administration 
to take care of itself. But merely good laws 
and good city charters will not do. They do 
not, necessarily, produce a good city govern- 
ment. I understand that St. Louis has an al- 
most perfect city charter; but the perfection of 
the charter has not insured the perfection of its 
municipal government. A bad city government 
has existed, again and again, in connection with 
an almost perfect city charter. 

A good city government is wholly de- 
pendent, at any given time, upon the integrity; 
vigor and executive ability of the administra- 
tion. If you are to have a clean city govern- 
ment, the men who administer it must be clean. 
But, how are you to get clean men to adminis- 
ter it? Certainly by the majority of citizens 
voting for clean men. Hence everything turns on 
the kind of citizenship which prevails. 

Let me tell you something. The real head of 
any city is public opinion. And by public opin- 
ion I do not mean an inert, laggard, dormant 



200 THE LIVING CHRIST 

public opinion, but an aggressive, irritating, 
pungent public opinion, that uses needle-guns 
all along the line, when things begin to go 
wrong. The only real competitor that Al- 
mighty God has for the dominion of, the world, 
is public opinion. Back of all the empires, and 
under all thrones, and around all city govern- 
ments, and in all public laws, is the force of 
public opinion, which, in the end, asserts its 
supremacy. The unwritten law of England is 
public opinion; and it is more predominant and 
regnant than Edward VII himself. In the 
long run, public opinion determines what can, 
and what cannot be done. But it is an active, 
alert, vigilant and resourceful public opinion. 
It is the public opinion that reaches the ear 
of men in authority, and calls them down when 
their ways become crooked. 

We live in an age when we think mechanism 
can doi about everything that needs to be done ; 
that it can even produce a good city govern- 
ment. We adopt the Australian ballot, we ob- 
tain voting machines, we secure a Primary 
Election law, and now, we say, we have per- 
fected things; we have nothing more to do but 
touch the button and this beautiful machinery 



WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY 201 

will turn out the delightful product of good 
government. We leave our duties of citizen- 
ship to mechanism, which our ingenuity has in- 
vented. We go back home, and attend strictly 
to business. In the meantime, every thief, every 
saloon-keeper, every gambler, and everybody 
with a hatchet to grind, and everybody that 
wants a contract, and everybody that wants to 
rob the public, begins to swarm around the city 
government, clamoring for recognition. They 
get in their work; and corruption follows. We 
find, alas, that mechanism is no substitute for 
morals. The solution of the problem of munic- 
ipal government must be found in men — men 
of character, men of intelligence. It will be 
what our citizenship is, as voiced by public 
opinion. The city may be full of good men, and 
yet all sorts of vice and corruption may prevail 
in the city, for the reason that 1 the opinions of 
good men are not voiced. 

What avail is public opinion, when it is shut 
up in our thoughts, and packed away in our 
sentiments, when it burrows in our ideals, and 
gets in no fine work, as the hydra head of evil 
shows itself? Given the backing of an earnest, 
aggressive public opinion, and there is nothing, 



202 THE LIVING CHRIST 

in the way of reform, which cannot be accom- 
plished in the course of time. There is not 
a righteous law upon our statute-books, which 
cannot be enforced, under these conditions. 
How long would there remain in existence a 
"stall saloon," if there were a good public 
opinion standing around, giving the backing 
and moral support of the community? 

The trouble is, we try to do most of our re- 
form work at the wrong end of the line. After 
vice and corruption are fairly entrenched, and 
the results are clearly in evidence, then we open 
our batteries and begin a cannonade against 
existing evils. We fight the devil after he has 
thoroughly fenced and walled himself in with 
plenty of outworks and fortifications. What are 
we to do? Keep the devil in the "open" where 
he must contend without breastworks. Keep 
him "on the jump," so that he will not be cer- 
tain of any local habitation. This can be done 
only where there is an aroused public senti- 
ment which does not simply scent mischief in 
its results, but in its causes. Our chief busi- 
ness is not to scold the powers that be, and 
rain invectives upon them.; it is to castigate the 
civic conscience of the community, and make it 



WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY 203 

distressed and ashamed at its indifference and 
selfishness respecting the duties of citizenship. 

THE BIBLE IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

Mr. Justice Story said: "There has never 
been a period in which the common law did not 
recognize Christianity as lying at its founda- 
tion. " How peculiar, if the law of the land is 
grounded in Christianity, and Christianity is 
taken from the Bible — that the Bible is a 
"sectarian book!" If the book is sectarian, 
then that which comes from it is sectarian; and 
so, the amazing conclusion is reached that the 
law of the land is sectarian. We have, then, 
the strange spectacle of grave judges adminis- 
tering a sectarian law and declaring that the 
book is sectarian from which they derive the 
principles on which are based their decisions. 

The Bible is everywhere. The Bible is in the 
schools, whether it is read there or not. What 
English literature can be read, that is not 
colored, in its very fiber, by Biblical truth? 
Shall we rewrite our histories, our treatises on 
metaphysics and political economy, our very 
dictionaries? We shall have to, if we wish to 
keep the Bible out of our schools. It is in them 



204 THE LIVING CHRIST 

all. Christian principles and morals underlie 
our manners and customs, our thoughts and 
feelings, the inmost tenor of our life. But the 
Bible is a "sectarian book!" Then we are 
steeped in sectarianism, from the crown of our 
head to the soles of our feet. The only way to 
get rid of this sort of sectarianism, is to sweep 
the continent clean of its inhabitants and re- 
people it from some race that has never seen 
the Bible nor heard the voice of a missionary. 

In the midst of a Christian civilization, let us 
not maintain that there is no Bible beyond that 
which has leaves and covers and that is the 
product of the printing-press. 

The Bible is wrought into the very texture of 
American life. No science is godless; no realm 
of education is godless. The history of the 
United States is not godless. God is the God 
of Winthrop and Washington and Lincoln, as 
well as of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, 
the God of geometry as well as of the calendar 
of the saints! I say again, the Bible is 
in the public schools, whether it is read 
there or not; and it cannot be kept out, 
for the reason that it is not a sectarian book. 
What kind of morality is taught our youth in 



WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY 205 

the public school? A Christian morality. They 
are taught a sacred regard for truth; they are 
taught love of country, of humanity and in- 
dividual benevolence; they are taught sobriety, 
industry and frugality; they are taught chastity, 
moderation and temperance and all those 
virtues that are supposed to be ornaments to 
human society. When teachers are inculcating 
these virtues, they are, so far forth, teaching the 
Bible. They are emphasizing moral principles, 
which owe all their grand significance and sanc- 
tion to the Bible. Let a moral precept be taught 
in our common schools, which is contrary to the 
teaching of the Bible, and the community 
would be shocked. The fact that the Bible is 
not read in some of our public schools, may be 
painful to many of us; but the Bible is too large 
a book to be stopped by any such exclusion. 
You cannot bar its influence; you cannot hinder 
its power. Put up your little embankments and 
say, "Thus far and no farther;" and it will 
sweep down upon them, overflow them and 
spread out into a wide sea, a boundless ocean. 



TROUBLE 
AN INCIDENT IN LIFE TO OVERCOME 



TROUBLE 

AN INCIDENT IN LIFE TO OVERCOME 

Far back in the history of the human race, the 
sad philosophy that "man is born unto trouble 
as the sparks fly upward," had become estab- 
lished. Adown the centuries, this statement has 
been preached from every pulpit, declared in 
every family, published in every form of Chris- 
tian literature, because, when it is affirmed that 
man is born unto trouble, we have not only a 
fact stated, but a doctrine announced. It is 
much as if it were said, trouble belongs to the 
warp and woof of things. But, is it true? Is there 
no happy man to stand up and say, No, this is 
a mistake ; I have had no trouble ; my days have 
been days of laughter and mirthfulness and fes- 
tival ; a summer life has been mine, without one 
touch or breath of chill and cruel winter ; every- 
thing has been smooth and unruffled, since I 
drew my first breath ? Such a man has not yet 
been born. 

209 



210 THE LIVING CHRIST 

The truth is, man is not completely strong 
anywhere. He never built a house that time did 
not unroof, that time did not take down. He 
never built a ship that God's great sea could not 
swallow up like a pebble. He never made a 
chronometer that keeps pace with the sun — 
exactly, astronomically, punctually; his poor 
chronometer is always falling out of beat, is al- 
ways in need of survey and repair. Whatever 
man does — what he builds, what he writes, what 
he invents — has upon it the seal of trouble ; there 
is always a defect somewhere. 

Wei might be glad to find a man who had dis- 
covered a Bible that says man is not born un- 
to trouble ; who would/ tell us that he had found 
a nation all young, all happy, all moving and 
living in the spirit of music. Until that nation 
is discovered, we abide in the rock of our own 
experience, we stand in the sanctuary of what we 
ourselves have known and felt and handled. 

What man calls his progress is but a series 
of self-amendments. Why not face these facts, 
and search into their origin? If it be science to 
take some little stone back, in its geological 
history, until its origin is discovered, it cannot 
be other than a greater science to take back 



TROUBLE 211 

some human emotion, some sad, awful human 
experience, and trace it to the starting-point. 

It has been taught that all trouble comes from 
sin, as a punishment for disobedience. This can 
hardly be true ; from the connection between the 
two cannot always be traced. On one occasion, 
as Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from his 
birth. His disciples asked him, saying, "Rabbi, 
who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he 
should be born blind ?" Jesus answered, 
"Neither did this man sin, nor his parents : but 
that the works of God should be made manifest 
in him." There is no doubt that sin is the 
greatest troubler in the world; and if it were 
blotted out, such a change would take place that 
we should scarcely recognize we were living on 
the same planet. Yet there is trouble for the 
good as well as for the bad. "The wages of 
sin is death ;" but the wages of righteousness is 
not always exemption from loss, pain and disap- 
pointment. 

There is trouble of some sort in every house. 
Talmage was once passing down a city street, 
in company with a merchant who knew all 
the finest houses on it. The merchant said, 
"There is something the matter in all these 



212 THE LIVING CHRIST 

houses. In this one, it is conjugal infelicity; in 
that one, it is a dissipated son. In this one, it 
is a dissolute father ; in, that, an idiot child ; and 
in the other the prospect of bankruptcy/' And, 
probably, we could go through the streets of our 
own city, or town, and say there is something the 
matter in every house; there is some trouble 
there. 

In many of our homes, death has cast its 
shadow; there is the vacant chair; the lips that 
once spoke words of tenderness and love are 
sealed. We cannot call them back. The child 
that played at our feet, and brought sunshine to 
all our hopes, has passed from our sight, and 
mingles with those in bright array on the other 
shore. Such sorrows are inevitable ; they belong 
to the course of nature ; they are part and parcel 
of a human experience that is universal. To 
escape from trouble we would have to escape 
from existence; for it is here and there and 
everywhere. Since this is the fact, how can we 
doubt that God intended we should live in a 
world where there are to be found all these 
varied experiences of pains, hardships, losses 
and disappointments? Moreover, ought we not 
to consider that this is the very best sort of a 



TROUBLE 213 

world for us, and that any other arrangement 
would be to our harm and disadvantage? 

An earnest and brilliant thinker has lately 
said: "If I had my life to live oyer again, and if 
I were given the choice to accept it, from in- 
fancy to old age, without a disappointment, the 
shadow of a loss, a hurt or a pain, I would 
not dare to take life on such terms; I would 
rather say, 'Give me such life as the universe 
offers, with its strange vicissitudes, with its sum- 
mer and winter, its shadows and sunshine, its 
bitter-sweet of sorrow mingled in its cup. If the 
raising of my hand would save those whom I 
love most from all pain throughout eternity, I 
would not dare to raise my hand. What comes 
to all, what is universal, I believe is not evil, but 
good.' " 

What constitutes the real and full life? Our 
Longfellow says, "Not enjoyment and not sor- 
row, is our destined end and way." What is it, 
then? It is life wrought out through achieve- 
ment. And there is no achievement without 
the confronting and overcoming of obstacles. 
A life would be utterly colorless and dull, that 
moved so smoothly and frictionless that it at- 
tained success without a struggle. It is life con- 



214 THE LIVING CHRIST 

tending under pressure and difficulties:, and fi- 
nally emerging and proving itself superior to all 
obstructions in the way, that is entitled to 
honor, and a place in the gallery of heroes. And 
this is the only sort of life that brings satisfac- 
tion to the soul of man himself. The highest 
delight which we can, have is that which comes 
through achievement. What was the particular 
delight of the great engineers who carried the 
Canadian Pacific Railroad across the Rocky 
Mountains? Was it the pay and the applause? 
I think not. They would have chosen to do their 
work if they had barely received a living out 
of it, or even if the praise went to the wrong 
persons. Their delight was not merely in cut- 
ting through loose gravel or pushing their way 
over easy levels. No! The great engineers' 
special joy is in overcoming difficulties, in solv- 
ing hard problems, in expressing all the power, 
courage, intelligence, genius, that they possess, 
in a splendid piece of human service. Show 
them steep cliffs, deep canons, roaring mountain 
torrents, quicksands and bogs, to be tunneled 
and bridged and filled, and their mastery of 
these is their delight. 

So the divine life-power in man takes every 



TROUBLE 215 

material of experience — difficulties, losses, op- 
position, pain, as well as successes, praise, favor 
and joy — and weaves all into a beautiful har- 
mony. What is the achievement in this 
case? What is the beautiful harmony 
secured? It is love, or good will. The divin- 
est power of this world is to give expres- 
sion to love or good will. It is a great thing to 
tunnel mountains and bridge canons ; but it is a 
greater and grander thing to encounter trials, 
oppositions and sorrows ; and, finally, to master 
them, emerging from them with a life purified, 
sweetened, and expressing itself in love and good 
will. When we speak of those whose life is 
soured and embittered, we simply mean those 
who have had trouble and been mastered by it. 
Instead of overcoming the trial, the trial over- 
came them. They did not consider, that losses 
and disappointments are a part of the program 
of this life. It was their philosophy that these 
things "ought not to be." Hence, when the 
trouble came they hugged it, carried it with 
them, brooded over it, until all the sweetness of 
their life was turned into bitterness. 

What a disaster to any man, to allow trouble 
to monopolize his thoughts and feelings ! The 



.2i6 THE LIVING CHRIST 

man is not his full self when trouble becomes 
weakness as well as pain to him; he is but half 
a man, or less than half; his faculties are 
clouded, his hands have lost their cunning, his 
whole system feels the influence of the trouble 
that fills his vision and occupies his attention. 
Man was made to be bigger than any trouble. 
But when it comes to pass that the trouble is 
bigger than the man, it is not on account of 
some inexorable necessity, but because he has 
suffered it to be so. How often we fall down 
before little troubles, little disappointments, and 
become paralyzed by them! We can't do any- 
thing now ; we give right up ; and that which in- 
terested us once 1 interests us no more. This is 
weakness, not strength ; it is folly, not wisdom. 
Some one aptly describes the people who go 
around full of cynical criticism,, and finding a 
rotten spot in life's sweetest joys, as "the 
Knights of the Sorrowful Figure." We ought 
to keep out of the company of the Knights of 
the Sorrowful Figure. The disciples of Jesus 
have no right to go about in any such masquer- 
ade. It is not a fancy or a dream, but the real 
truth, that there is always a bright side to life, 
and to every experience in life ; and the bright 



TROUBLE 217 

side is the right side, the side where God is. 
There is no sorrow so dark but you may delve 
out from under it, if you will keep your face 
toward the light, and dig with a courageous 
heart. 

In talking about trouble, we should always 
talk about its mitigations. Is it possible that 
there can be a life, anywhere, on which some 
beam of sunshine does not fall? We are not 
talking now about the insane, or those who suf- 
fer from increasing and continued melancholy, 
but about the general average of human life; and, 
so speaking, we can always find, in the hardest 
lot, some mitigation of the burden, some com- 
pensation for the heavy darkness or difficulty. 
An incident that happened on a railway train 
is illustrative. A woman clad in deep mourn- 
ing entered the cars and took a seat just in front 
of an inquisitive-looking, sharp-faced female. 
The woman in black had not been seated long, 
before she felt a slight tap on the shoulder and 
heard her neighbor ask, in a low, sympathetic 
tone, "Lost anybody ?" A silent nod was the 
response. A slight pause, and then a second 
question, "Child ?" A low shake of the head, in 
the negative, was the answer. "Parent ?" A 



218 THE LIVING CHRIST 

similar reply, a low shake of the head in the 
negative. "Husband?" This time a slight nod 
in the affirmative. "Life insured?" A nod in 
the affirmative. "Experienced religion?" An- 
other nod in the affirmative. Then: "Well, 
well, cheer up! Life insured and experienced 
religion ; you are all right, and so 's he !" This 
may seem too practical a way of imparting com- 
fort to the sorrowful; and yet the general 
trend of the argument is correct. We should 
look out for the mitigations. Instead of argu- 
ing from the difficulty, we should argue from the 
strength which is able to bear the difficulty, in 
some degree. Instead of looking at the dark 
side of things we should accustom ourselves to 
look at the bright side of things, the side where , 
God is. 

How important to get into our minds that 
this is God's world! And since it is God's 
world, there is no need of fear or anxiety. 
There is nothing which ever befalls you, or 
those whom you love, which may not be so 
handled as to be translated into beauty and 
good. Human experiences of every sort be- 
come so much material for good. All trouble 
is subject to* this translation. This is the law. 



TROUBLE 219 

The darkest passages in life become radiant as 
we turn our faces toward the Sun of righteous- 
ness. 

A ship which arrived in New York from Rio 
de Janeiro, brought, in the captain's cabin, a 
pair of canaries from Rangoon. They were both 
fine singers, the quality, as well as the range of 
their notes, being extraordinary; but the dis- 
tinguishing characteristic of these songsters 
was, that they always sang at night. The Lord 
would make of us such canaries. He would 
have us, like Paul and Silas in the dungeon at 
Philippi, able to sing songs of hope and courage 
and victory in the darkest night of trial. It is 
these songs in the night that give the most ef- 
fective testimony to the power and worth of our 
religion. What; does our religion amount to if, 
falling under disappointment, we lose our faith 
and join the ranks of the Knights of the Sorrow- 
ful Figure? Disappointment is a thread to be 
woven into a beautiful pattern, bearing the 
stamp of love and good will. 

Brussels is a city of lace-shops. There the 
most splendid patterns of lace are spun in 
darkened rooms; the only admitted light is let 
in through a very small window, where it falls 



220 THE LIVING CHRIST 

directly on the pattern. When shall we under- 
stand that human lives can be worked out in the 
loveliest figures only by the aid of shadows? 
When will every wise soul sing out of a full 
heart, 

"I thank Thee more, that all my joy- 
Is touched with pain; 

That shadows fall on brightest hours, 
That thorns remain; 

So that earth's bliss may be my guide, 
And not my chain"? 
When shall we learn that pain, losses, disap- 
pointments are only the incidents of life; that 
the note of life is not sorrow or fear ; that life is 
blended of many notes and voices ; that joys and 
sorrows, toil and rest, alternate; and that the 
key-note of life rises out of the whole? And 
what is this key-note? It is not a wail of grief; 
it is not a bitter cry ; it isi musical, sweet, beauti- 
ful; a clarion call. It is a paean of victory; it 
tells a love story, and is joy. 

All around us are those who need the uplift 
of strong, joyous spirits. What is more depress- 
ing than the man who goes about sounding a 
discouraging note, who is continually looking 
upon the dark side of things, and talking about 
it? 



TROUBLE 221 

We never should forget that our spiritual at- 
mosphere helps to mold the character of others, 
every day, by discouraging or encouraging and 
inspiring them. To< do the most good, we must 
present, both in our conversation and life, the 
bright and courageous side of things. We are 
not only to act as those who are living in God's 
world and have nothing to fear, but we are to 
talk, hopefully and encouragingly, to show that 
our lives are not set in darkness, but in the light 
of Christ's life. 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox illustrates this thought 
very clearly in these verses : 

"Talk happiness. The world is sad enough 
Without your woes. No path is wholly rough; 
Look for the places that are smooth and clear, 
And speak of these, to rest the weary ear 
Of earth, so hurt by one continuous strain 
Of human discontent and grief and pain. 

Talk faith. The world is better off without 

Your uttered ignorance and morbid doubt. 

If you have faith in God, or man, or self, 

Say so; if not, push back upon the shelf 

Of silence, all your thoughts, till faith shall come; 

No one will grieve because your lips are dumb. 

Talk health. The dreary, never-changing tale 
Of mortal maladies, is worn and stale. 



222 THE LIVING CHRIST 

You cannot charm, or interest, or please, 
By harping on that minor chord, disease- 
Say you are well, or all is well with you, 
And God shall hear your words and make them true/ 1 



REAL GOODNESS 



REAL GOODNESS 

On a certain occasion Jesus objected to be- 
ing called good. One reason was the super- 
ficial or merely outward meaning attached to 
it. To say, "Good Master," was a polite salu- 
tation. It was like our saying, good afternoon, 
or good morning. We use the word "good" in 
this way, without much thought of its meaning. 
Another reason was the fact that God alone 
possesses the absolute Good. God is what 
others become. 

Human goodness is a growth, even when 
there is no imperfection. It develops, like wis- 
dom, from childhood to youth, and then to 
manhood. The Master possessed this human 
goodness. 

It was said of Jesus that he advanced in 
wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and 
man. In assuming our humanity, Jesus as- 
sumed all the laws of development that be- 
longed to our humanity. He grew in stature 
225 



226 THE LIVING CHRIST 

and wisdom and goodness. He would not have 
been a man, and could not have had the ex- 
periences of a man, if he had been endowed with 
the absolute goodness of God. The goodness 
of Jesus was unique, unprecedented, without a 
parallel, because it was always what it ought 
to be in connection with the circumstances in 
which it was manifested. His goodness always 
kept pace with the knowledge and light which 
came to him. As he increased in wisdom, he 
increased in goodness, and consequently was 
"without sin." His goodness was not like his 
Father's, original, self-contained; but human, 
derivative, sustained by the constant reception 
of the Spirit bestowed from above. Therefore 
he refuses to accept the title in the absolute 
sense in which the Father is good. 

The word good is very frequently upon our 
lips. We speak of certain men as good. Cer- 
tainly we do not mean that they are good in 
the sense in which God is good. No man is 
good in the absolute sense. No man can be 
good to that extent; for that would involve 
perfectness of character, without the possibility 
of increase. We are growing creatures, and 
shall be, through the cycles of eternity, and 



REAL GOODNESS 227 

we shall never reach the bounds of the absolute 
goodness of God. No man is to blame, then, 
for not being as good as God is. But we can 
say this: the word good means the same in 
him and in us, else it means nothing to* us. We 
are not to think of the goodness of God as so far 
above and beyond the reach of our comprehen- 
sion that it becomes different from that with 
which we are familiar. It is not different in 
kind, but in degree and intensity. So far as we 
know anything about goodness, it is just like 
his. 

We say more. Wherever is seen any 
goodness, in yourself or anybody else, under 
whatever form it may appear, it is but a spark 
and manifestation of the "Eternal Goodness" of 
God. Understand that your goodness is not 
original, but derivative. God is the fountain of 
it, and you are the medium, or may be the 
medium, through which a few drops may find 
an outlet. You must not think of goodness as 
having an independent culture and develop- 
ment, as flourishing whether there is a God or 
not. 

When I see a beautiful rose in your garden, 
I do not need to be told that the sun has been 



22% THE LIVING CHRIST 

there with his light and warmth. I know that 
there would have been no> rose at all, if the 
sun had withheld his shining. When I see 
the beautiful flower of goodness growing and 
blooming in any life, I need not be told that 
God has been there, with his shining and 
warmth. 

Let us think what it means to be good — a 
word so often used in a conventional way, ex- 
pressing certain external qualities which do 
not go to the heart of things. Here is a 
man who is law-abiding and orderly in his 
conduct, and we call him good. Here is a boy 
who makes no trouble, no mischief in school, 
and we call him good. Even little babies, 
that scarcely know their right hand from 
their left, are sometimes called good. "It 
is a good baby we have in our house." 
some mother says. What is meant? That 
the mother can put it to bed at six o'clock 
in the evening, and it will not wake up until 
seven o'clock in the morning. This fact makes 
a "good" baby. Feed it well and it is comforta- 
ble; and, after that, it attends strictly to the 
business of being good. 

Then there are certain people who are re- 



REAL GOODNESS 229 

spectable, representing law and order, and we 
call them good citizens. But even good citi- 
zens, who never saw the inside of a police court, 
and were never called to an account for an in- 
fraction of the law, often fail to stir our hearts 
to any admiration. Somehow their good citi- 
zenship is not very attractive. It does not 
elicit applause. Why? It does not cost much 
to be "good" in the form in which they exhibit 
it. It is easier to keep within the laws than to 
transgress them; as it is easier to walk on a 
good road than to walk through a thicket. 
Very likely they were born and brought up in 
the ways of respectability, and now they can 
keep) to them without half trying. 

Curiously enough, it is possible to be all 
this — good, respectable, orderly, never to have 
fear of the police or the sheriff, and yet be 
mean, narrow and selfish. Here is a boy that 
never gets a bad mark at school, and, perhaps, 
stands at the head of his class. Nevertheless, 
he may be neither brave nor generous. What 
if his father has offered him the prize of a gold 
watch for being the first scholar? What if we 
think of him pushing his way to the highest rank, 
under the spur of such a reward? How we 



230 THE LIVING CHRIST 

would discount his scholarship, and the genuine- 
ness of his ambition! 

It is for the interest of most people to obey 
the laws, and to be respectable. They find in- 
creased business, credit, honors and official 
position in being respectable. Why, indeed, 
should any intelligent person venture to do 
wrong and lose his respectable standing? But, 
suppose that every one could be persuaded to 
be good by this shrewd calculation of the profit 
of goodness, who would ever be satisfied with 
a world full of such cold-blooded virtue? As 
a matter of fact, we often prefer the company 
of certain persons who are not very good, in 
the conventional sense, to the company of others 
who are extremely orderly and proper. I have 
read of one Deacon Coffin, who was exceeding- 
ly rigid, exact and formal in his conduct. He 
himself had the impression that he embodied 
about every virtue. He boasted that he had 
not laughed for twenty years, and had snickered 
but once in that time. But his friends admitted 
that he was "so awful good" they could not 
live with him. 

I suppose there are mothers and^ teachers 
who love their mischievous boys just about as 



REAL GOODNESS 231 

well as the boys who never need a word of 
blame. They do not love and admire them for 
their mischief, but because there is in them a 
gleam of life and reality. There is an exu- 
berance or overflow of spirits; there are sincerity 
and generous abandon. The "Deacon Coffins," 
shut up within the reservations of their ego- 
tism, or their superior caste, give us no touch 
of real, joyous, bountiful life. They exploit 
law and order for their own benefit, like the 
good boy, who proposes to earn a holiday with 
his conduct marks. Between selfish goodness, 
that is, merely orderly conduct, and a certain 
lawlessness, with moments of generosity shin- 
ing out of it, we are inclined to prefer the sight 
of the latter, although we may not, altogether, 
enjoy living next door to it. 

It is almost startling to read in the Gospels, 
how Jesus ignored the distinctions that had 
been drawn between the good and the bad. 
The Pharisees were the conventionally good 
people of his day. They kept the law in all 
strictness, and added to it their traditions, 
which increased the difficulty of exact con- 
duct. Jesus dines at the Pharisees' houses; but 
he does not hesitate to dine with publicans and 



232 THE LIVING CHRIST 

sinners. This is an awful thing to do, in the 
eyes of the Pharisees. But he, evidently, liked 
them better and found them more interesting. 
He was actually in closer sympathy with them 
than with the respectable Pharisees. Why? 
They had a certain openness and frankness and 
sincerity, which were not possessed by the latter. 
They were not good; they knew it, and ac- 
knowledged it. The Pharisees plumed them- 
selves on their goodness, and had nothing to 
show for it but the shell. 

We need to find a sounder and more vital 
sense in the word "good/' There are two things 
that we do not like in this world — lawlessness, 
and a conformity to law that is merely out- 
ward and heartless. That is, it is not enough 
to have conduct regular and orderly, unless it 
springs from the depths within. There must be 
discipline, or obedience, and life. Here is a 
horse, for example. What is he good for, if he 
throws the rider, runs away, and will not go 
in the carriage, or balks at its load? On the 
other hand, what is a horse good for, that has 
not force and energy enough to run away, if he 
had a favorable opportunity? I once knew a 
man in Vermont, (a sort of Eben Holden, in 



REAL GOODNESS 233 

his way) who declared, one day, that his horse 
was slower than the growth of trees. Said he, 
"If the road rises an inch in a mile, he stands 
stock still !" In a horse, you not only want 
discipline, but life, force and speed. 

The problem is to combine training and life. 
The training must not waste the life; it must 
develop the life so that the trained creature 
can do and be more than he could possibly do 
and be, if left to run wild. 

We seek the same combination in the educa- 
tion of children. What are we to do with the 
exuberance of a child? We are not to* waste 
one ounce of it, but turn it over, by discipline, 
into beauty, grace and efficiency. Show us 
only wild goodness — slovenly, inconstant, im- 
patient, blundering — and then show us trained 
goodness, watchful, biding its time, uncom- 
plaining, faithful to death, generous, and who 
will not choose the latter? 

Now I think we can see what it really is to 
be good, viz., to express good will, or love; to 
let good will, flowing from the heart of God, 
as if from an infinite reservoir, flow through us 
and use us. We are good to the extent of our 
love, or good will. What kind of love is good? 



234 THE LIVING CHRIST 

Any kind. Love is love, the universe through. 
In every act of real love, we are good, in that 
instance. The mother loves her child; what is 
that but a spark from the infinite orb of "Eter- 
nal Goodness." A friend whose love demands 
nothing, asks nothing, but the privilege of be- 
ing kind and tender-hearted, is indeed a good 
friend. 

I read of an engineer who went to his death 
with his hand on the throttle of his engine. 
What was that but a flashing of goodness in 
his soul, borne in upon him from afar? The 
sailor goes over the ship's side and plunges in 
to the rescue of perishing strangers, on a 
storm-tossed wreck. What is this but a gleam 
of the divine goodness? Every one is good, 
at times, in happy hours, in grand moments, 
when the tide of love comes flowing in 
upon the soul, amid the trumpet calls 
of duty. Why? Because, in these better 
moments, we carry good will in our hearts; we 
let our love well up into expression; we speak 
it, we act it; its light is in our faces; its frank 
fearlessness is in our hearts. And now, if we 
only continued such good will, reiterated such 
acts; if we only kept the flow of the divine cur- 



REAL GOODNESS 235 

1 
1 

rent open from the infinite reservoir, through 
our souls, as through a channel, then we should 
be living the eternal life, and should indeed share 
in the goodness of God. 

The trouble with our goodness is not that 
we don't know how to be good, but that we will 
not be good, all the time. We know how it 
was in the early days of the electric light. It 
would shine out for a time, and then, without 
a moment's warning, it would leave the city in 
darkness. Men behave very much like the old 
electric light; they are good by fits and starts; 
but you cannot depend upon them, or know in 
what dark and stormy night the shining of 
their goodness will go out. To have good will 
to-day, and ill will to-morrow, is not the 
standard of goodness. Real goodness, belong- 
ing to character, is continuous in its manifes- 
tation. It can be depended upon; it will not 
fail in drouth or storm. 

There is another characteristic of real good- 
ness. It is universal in its nature. I mean, that 
it shines out upon all, and not merely upon a 
select few. „With many of us there is a dark 
belt, where our goodness does not act; we have 
enemies, or think we have; we have rivals; we 



236 THE LIVING CHRIST 

have those whom we despise, or to whom we 
are indifferent. This is the dark belt, where 
our goodness does not operate. We try to 
cover the territory, outside of the dark belt, 
with our good will, it may be ; but we purpose 
to stop when we approach the other territory. 
We do not intend to have our good will do 
business in that region. Evidently our good 
will does not correspond to the divine good 
will, which makes no distinction of persons. 
How was it with the Master? The greater the 
need, the more active and generous was his 
love. He poured out upon the dark belt a pro- 
fusion of good will. The very men that slew 
him were not excluded from his love, and he 
pleaded for their forgiveness. Would it not 
be beautiful if our goodness had this all-round 
generosity? 

Let us suppose that you had lived before 
the government had built lighthouses. We will 
suppose that your house is situated on a point 
which overlooks the harbor, where vessels pass 
and repass. Partly through kindliness, and 
partly through the fact that you are a ship- 
owner yourself, you determine to keep a light 
in your window, to guide the sailors in dark 



REAL GOODNESS 237 

nights. We will suppose that you are familiar 
with all the vessels that enter the harbor in 
sight of your house. You know all the captains 
and the crews — the good ones and the bad 
ones — the foreigners, and your own country- 
men; you know the ships in which you are in- 
terested, and those that belong to your rivals, 
those that are friendly and those that are un- 
friendly. Now, how about keeping a light in 
your window, during every dark night, for friend 
or foe? Suppose you say, this is my light, and 
it is kept at my own expense; and, therefore, 
I can do as I please with it; I can turn it on 
or shut it off, according to my own pleasure. 
The vessels that I own, and the captains I like, 
shall find a light in my window on every dark 
night. But the others must get on as well as 
they can, without the light. If they are wrecked, 
it is none of my business. I have made no en- 
gagement to supply them with light. Hence, 
as soon as the rival vessel appears on the hori- 
zon, you turn off your light, with the thought 
that no' favors are to be shown to competitors. 
As soon as the foreign vessel comes into view, 
you extinguish the light, and say, I will let 
those Dutchmen poke their way into the har- 



238 THE LIVING CHRIST 

bor as best they can; they can't have the use 
of my light this night. Do you imagine 
that the community would be inclined to> erect 
a monument in memory of the disinterestedness 
and generosity of a man whqi used his lantern 
in that way? Would you expect to find chiseled 
upon his tombstone the epitaph, "Here lies 
the dust of a good man"? 

Real goodness lets its lamp shine for all, and 
would save from wreck its worst enemy. The 
one law of our life is, to turn on the light, and 
to keep it on. The one prayer is, that, whatever 
we do, we may never show ill will or self will, 
but only good will. Why? Because this is the 
divine and universal law of all spiritual life; 
because Christ does thus for us ; and to do as 
he does is what every man is here for. Some 
one says, I have good will for my friends, but 
not for my enemies; as soon as they approach, 
I shut off the light; I do not keep my lamp 
shining for those who are not good ^to me. 

Do you know that we cannot be good to 
those who are good toi us unless the divine cur- 
rent of good will is turned on, once for all, and 
we have made up our minds to keep it on, so 
far as we can, forever? If our good will is 



REAL GOODNESS 239 

partial, and select, it will fail in some hour of 
darkness, where we least expect it; and its light 
will be extinguished in the house of our friends ; 
and the black belt will embrace the whole area 
of our life. This is the tendency of circumscrib- 
ing and narrowing our good will. Shut off the 
flow of good will in one direction, and keep 
a dark belt, where your lamp never shines, and 
you will find, as temptations assail you, that the 
darkness widens its range, and encroaches upon 
the region of light; and, finally, a dark shadow 
will be flung over the whole hemisphere of your 
life. 

Keep open the floodgates of good-will and 
never dare close them against any one. Let 
this vital connection be broken, and no one is 
safe ; no action is valid. Without good will, or 
love, the good becomes as bad; but with good 
will, the bad at once ceases to be bad, and is 
good. Here is the philosophy of happiness. 
How we puzzle over the question, "how to be 
happy"! We think of this thing, that thing 
and the other thing, to make us happy. There 
is just one thing toi make us happy. It is good 
will; a good will, that carries the blessing of 
love and kindness to all; that penetrates the 



240 THE LIVING CHRIST 

dark belt and scatters the dark shadows by 
turning on the light, which is never suffered to 
go out. 

The health of our souls rises and falls with 
the flow of good will in us. The joy of living is 
simply the output of good will. We sing as 
we go, as long as there is no check or hind- 
rance to our good will to men. Good will is 
what unites us to God and his Christ and 
brings into our lives the divine current of love, 
which irrigates our whole being. Good will is 
the divine stamp which marks the children of 
God. The measure of good will in us, is the 
measure of our real goodness. 



THE MANHOOD OF LINCOLN 



THE MANHOOD OF LINCOLN 

What was the wonderful power by which 
Abraham Lincoln subdued, conquered and com- 
pelled all hearts to love and respect him, and 
which keeps his memory as fresh and green as if 
he were living among us to-day? It was the 
manhood of the man himself — his character — 
what he was, in the essence of his life. We are 
drawn towards him, not simply by his deeds, his 
achievements, but by what he was in heart and 
soul. Napoleon was masterful in achievement, 
but who loves him? 

Lincoln started at the lowest level. Hardly a 
man ever lived, whose early conditions had less 
of promise in them. As the picture unrolls, his 
abiding-places wear all the marks of poverty 
and destitution. In the backwoods, on the 
farm, by the river-bank, in the small village, his 
conditions are lowly. But in connection with 
all these lowly conditions, we discover that the 
young man is making strenuous efforts at self- 
243 * 



244 THE LIVING CHRIST 

education. As* time passes, he becomes an ac- 
tive, respected citizen in the new and energetic 
community where he lives, and is thought of 
as a fit representative in the legislature. In 
1858, the compiler of "A Dictionary of Con- 
gress" sent a circular of inquiry to Mr. Lincoln, 
as a former Congressman, asking information as 
to his birth, education, occupation, and a list of 
the public offices he had filled. This was before 
he was the most talked about man inj America, 
and before any one had dreamed of his becoming 
President. The following concise statement 
was returned to the compiler: "A. Lincoln. 
Born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Ky. 
Education, defective. Profession, a lawyer. 
Have been a captain of volunteers! in the Black 
Hawk War. Postmaster at a very small office. 
Four times a member of the Illinois legislature. 
And was a member of the lower House of Con- 
gress." 

The question is sometimes asked, "What made 
Lincoln?" The current saying is "circum- 
stances make the man." Whether this is 
true or not, depends upon the man. The same 
circumstances do not, always, make the same 
kind of a man. It was, preeminently, the forces 



THE MANHOOD OF LINCOLN 245 

in Lincoln that made him. If you are to ex- 
plain Lincoln, you must explain the inside man. 

When the inside man is what he ought to be, 
circumstances are of secondary consequence; 
that is, it does not make much difference 
whether they are favorable or unfavorable, hard 
or easy. In either case, the circumstances are 
utilized and made contributors to the develop- 
ment of the man. The hard conditions in which 
Lincoln found himself, at the beginning of life, 
became his allies instead of his enemies. It is 
quite probable that, in the end, they helped 
rather than hindered him. This simply empha- 
sizes the fact that, to know Lincoln, we must 
know; the inside man. 

Now what was that almost indescribable qual- 
ity, which belonged to this inside man, which 
ever seemed to be present, and which never 
failed to express itself in his conduct? It was 
what might be called, in a general way, the clear- 
ness of truth. This does not mean, simply, that 
he was a man who told the truth ; but that truth 
belonged to his very nature, so that, to know; 
the truth and do it wa$ the very essence of his 
purpose. What we call pretence, subterfuge, 
evasion, mere acting, were as foreign to his na- 



246 THE LIVING CHRIST 

ture as light to darkness. This quality was so 
inherent that it found expression in every de- 
partment of his nature. It appeared in the 
physical structure, as health, in the moral con- 
stitution, as honesty, in the mental structure, as 
sagacity, and in the region of active life, as prac- 
ticalness. Even his physical strength and endu- 
rance as a worker, cannot be separated from his 
character. 

It is said that most men have some disabling 
quality. It is not always bad health, but, more 
frequently, a moral deficiency. Sometimes it is 
conceit that spoils a man for all kinds of work ; 
sometimes it is love of pleasure; then again it is 
lethargy, or an ugly temper. These are all 
disqualifying faults and throw a man out of a 
great career. 

Lincoln had a prodigious faculty of perform- 
ance and worked easily. Why? Because he 
was sound to the core, cheerful, persistent, all 
right for labor, and liked nothing so well. 
There was nothing in temper or disposition that 
disqualified him. Uniting strength and muscular 
activity with the power of enduring, which, as a 
backwoods boy, he inherited from 'generations 
of hard-living ancestors, full of the culture of 



THE MANHOOD OF LINCOLN 247 

labor, he was able to perform tasks, under any 
and all conditions, which were amazing to his 
countrymen. 

Looking now at the moral and intellectual 
powers which Mr. Lincoln possessed, you will 
find them all embraced under the general de- 
scription of clearness and truth, which makes it 
impossible to examine them in separation. 
They go together; they blend. Men have 
sometimes asked if Mr. Lincoln was an intel- 
lectual man — as though intellect were always of 
the same sort, and could be precipitated from 
other constituents of the body, weighed by it- 
self, and compared, in pounds and ounces, with 
that of another man. 

The truth is, that, in the best and noblest 
characters, you can hardly draw the line be- 
tween their moral and intellectual natures. We 
are unable to tell, in considering the wise acts 
and words which issue from such a life as Lin- 
coln's, whether there is more of righteousness, 
that comes of a clear conscience, or more of the 
sagacity, that comes of a clear intellect. But 
this combination is not found in all men. The 
moral life and the intellectual life do not always 
cooperate. They even stand over against each 



248 THE LIVING CHRIST 

other, as antagonists. Hence we come to speak 
of some men as intellectual, but not moral ; ex- 
hibiting intelligence, but not conscience. And, 
finally, we entertain the melancholy notion that 
goodness and greatness, as we call them, are not 
to be looked for together; and thus we expect 
to see, and do see, a feeble and narrow con- 
scientiousness on the one hand, and a bad and 
unprincipled intelligence on the other. 

It was a great virtue in Lincoln, and a great 
blessing to others, that he reunited what God 
has joined together and man has put asunder. 
In him was vindicated the greatness of real 
goodness, and the goodness of real greatness. 
The twain were one flesh. That is, in respect to 
what he said and did you cannot tell, to-day, 
whether they came more from a strong head or 
a sound heart; whether his goodness or great- 
ness had more to do in wisely deciding some 
important matter of state. The only true an- 
swer would be, that both his goodness and his 
greatness contributed to the judgment. 

There are men who seem about as good as 
Lincoln; but they do bad things. There are 
men as intelligent as he; yet they do foolish 
things. He combined intelligence and good- 
ness, and their best result was wisdom. 



THE MANHOOD OF LINCOLN 249 

After all these years of scrutiny and criticism, 
it would be a heavy task for a historian to lay 
his hands on any bad things that Lincoln did 
while at the head of this nation ; by bad things 
I mean things involving selfishness or wrong 
of any sort ; and it would be just as hard to point 
to any foolish things that he did. He some- 
times made mistakes, for he was not infallible; 
but he was first to make the correction. 

Truth was the very quintessence of his spirit. 
"Honest old Abe," was neither a fictitious nor 
ironical title. When applied to him, it expressed 
exactly what men who came in close contact 
with him thought of him. To question his 
honesty would be like questioning the most 
patent fact of physical vision. In his great 
"Cooper Institute" speech, he made use of an 
expression that revealed the man. "Let us 
have faith, that right makes might ; and, in that 
faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty, as 
we understand it." And what is right, but truth 
carried out into practical relations? Nothing 
could drive him from the path of right, when he 
saw that it expressed the truth of his position. 
After he issued the emancipation proclamation, 
there was no power on earth that could lead him 



2So THE LIVING CHRIST 

to retract or modify it. His whole nature was 
up in arms against the suggestion of retraction. 
Said he, "There have been men base enough to 
ask; me to return to slavery our black warriors 
of Port Hudson and Olustee; thus to win the 
respect of the masters they fought. Should I 
do so, I should deserve to be damned, in time 
and eternity. Come what will, I will keep my 
faith with friend and foe." 

Let us observe, now, how Lincoln, by his 
character, has become the type-man of our 
country. Lowell has called him the "first 
American." What is it to be an American, in 
the true sense ? It does not mean simply, to be 
born in America. An American, in the sense 
in which Lincoln may be regarded as the first 
American, isi one whose character is developed 
under the discipline of freedom. By freedom, 
we do not mean such freedom as is found in 
various parts of the world under aristocratic 
and despotic forms of government, but such as 
is involved and proclaimed in the Declaration of 
Independence ; and, according to Lowell, Lin- 
coln was first to take that immortal document to 
heart, make it the creed of his life and maintain 
it and hold it, consistently, in all its logical 
bearings. 



THE MANHOOD OF LINCOLN 251 

What determines the place of man, under the 
discipline of that freedom vouchsafed in the 
Declaration of Independence? Certainly, no 
outward restraints can deprive a man of his 
place; for every man has a right to be all that 
he can be, wherever he is, in this land of free- 
dom. Suppose we take this to be our idea of 
freedom, under our form of government ; every 
man has a right to be all that he can be; that 
is, he has a right to the fruit of all the possibili- 
ties of his nature, so far as this fruit is the 
achievement of well-doing. Well-doing, then, 
becomes the measure of a man, under the dis- 
cipline of freedom, as interpreted by the 
Declaration of Independence. In determining, 
then, whether a man is an American or not, we 
do not ask, where he is born, or what is his 
pedigree ; we are not concerned whether he first 
saw light in a hovel, or a palace, in the wilder- 
ness or in the town. We simply ask, is he one 
who believes that a man has a right to be all 
that he can be, by well-doing? This is the prin- 
ciple by which we may test our Americanism; 
and this is precisely the Americanism that 
Lincoln represented. 

There are indications, here and there, that 



252 THE LIVING CHRIST 

people are entertaining quite un-American ideas. 
Let us see. Every man has a right to be all that 
he can be, socially, by well-doing. Booker T. 
Washington was once invited to dine with the 
president; and it raised a perfect storm of 
protest, in a certain section of the country. 
Why should it be such a grave offence for Mr. 
Washington to break bread with the president? 
Anything the matter with his character? An- 
thing the matter with his education ? Anything 
the matter with his ability? No ! In respect to 
these things, he is the peer of almost any man in 
the state, where he lives. But — and here is the 
awful disgrace of the thing — his face is colored. 
And because his face is colored, he must not be 
allowed to be all he can be, socially, though he is, 
in a way, the prince of educators in the South. 
Americans are not those who make nothing of 
well-doing, and who draw the line at color. 
What was the crime of Mrs. Cox, the postmis- 
tress of Indianola, who fled from her home to 
escape the indignation of her fellow townsmen? 
Had she made free with the stamps and money 
in the post-office? Was she incompetent? 
Was she discourteous? Was any fault to be 
found with her as a postmistress? Not at all! 



THE MANHOOD OF LINCOLN 253 

What sent her away, in a hurry, from her native 
town? A crime (?) for which there was no 
mercy. While the blood in her veins is seven- 
eighths white, there mingled with it, one-eighth 
colored. And because of this slight tinge of 
color in her complexion, she is not allowed to 
be all that she can be, officially, though a faith- 
ful servant of the government. Let us write un- 
American on all such foolish and wicked preju- 
dices! How did Lincoln treat a colored man? 
Let Fred Douglas, the great negro orator, an- 
swer. "Lincoln was the first great man I talked 
with freely, in the United States, who, in no 
single instance, reminded me of the difference 
between himself and me, of the difference in 
color." There is your genuine American! 

Every man has a right to be all that he can 
be, commercially, by well-doing. What about 
the Trusts, which prevent thousands of men 
from being all they can be commercially, either 
by swallowing them up, or crushing them out? 
Write un-American on the back and front, on the 
inside and outside of every Trust, which takes 
advantage of its power to cripple and destroy 
other competitors in the field! 

Taking the Declaration of Independence as 



254 THE LIVING CHRIST 

our charter of freedom, every man has a right to 
be all that he can be in the labor world. What 
about that organization, then, which sometimes 
undertakes to tell men whether they are to be 
allowed to* work or not, whether they are mem- 
bers of the organization or not, and follows 
them with vengeance when they keep at work 
after the signal is given to stop. Cover it all 
over, plaster it thick, with the label, un-Ameri- 
can! 

There is nothing that this country needs so 
much, to-day, as the Lincoln type of Americans. 
He was a kind of multitudinous man. What 
richness and fullness in his character ! The ele- 
ments were so mixed in him, that nature might 
stand up, and say to all the world, This is a man. 
In the time of the great crisis in our national 
history, our country was looking for just such a 
man. We did not know that we had him, at 
first. It took some time to find him out ; but we 
did, at last. And what a man had we dis- 
covered! A man who was honest, and sound 
from center to circumference, true to the heart's 
core; a man whose conscience was as steady as 
the needle to the pole ; a man who would stand 
for the right if the heavens tottered and the 



THE MANHOOD OF LINCOLN 255 

earth reeled ; a man who could tell the truth, and 
look the world and the devil right in the eye ; a 
man who would neither brag nor run; a man 
who would neither flag nor flinch; a man who 
had courage without shouting to it; a man in 
whom the courage of everlasting life ran still, 
deep and strong; a man who knew his message 
and told it; a man who knew his place and filled 
it; a man who knew his own business and at- 
tended to it ; a man who would neither shirk nor 
dodge ; a man who was neither too lazy to work, 
nor too proud to be poor ; a man who 1 was the 
first typical American, and, as Grady, of the At- 
lanta Constitution once said, "the first who com- 
prehended, within himself, all the strength and 
gentleness, all the majesty and grace of this re- 
public." 

We are not surprised to find that this man re- 
garded Providence as an important factor in the 
accomplishment of the great tasks that were 
laid upon him, and that he was accustomed to 
seek the help of the God of nations. 

During the year 1862, the hopes of the North 
were at their lowest ebb. It was after the 
second battle of Bull Run had been fought and 
lost. McClellan was entrenched before Rich- 



256 THE LIVING CHRIST 

mond, and the strength and resources of the na- 
tion seemed to have been fruitlessly wasted. 
Henry Ward Beecher at this time was in Brook- 
lyn, and was, perhaps, more prominently asso- 
ciated with the cause of the North, in those days, 
than any other minister of the gospel, having 
fought its battles in pulpit and press. Late one 
evening, a stranger called at his home and asked 
to see him. Mr. Beecher was working alone in 
his study, asi was his usual custom. This 
stranger refused to send up his card, and came 
muffled in a military coat, which completely hid 
his face. Mrs. Beecher's suspicionsi were 
aroused; and she was unwilling that he should 
have the interview which he requested, espe- 
cially as Mr. Beecher's life had been frequently 
threatened by sympathizers with the South. 
The visitor insisted, however, that he be shown 
up to the study of the great preacher. Accord- 
ingly, the stranger was permitted to enter, the 
doors were shut, and for hours the wife below 
could hear their voices and their footsteps, as 
they paced back and forth. Finally, towards 
midnight, the mysterious stranger went out, still 
muffled in his cloak, so that it was. impossible to 
gain any idea of his features. The years went 



THE MANHOOD OF LINCOLN 257 

by, the war was finished, the president had suf- 
fered martyrdom at his post ; and it was not un- 
til shortly before Beecher's death, over twenty 
years later, that it was known that the myste- 
rious stranger, who had called on that stormy 
winter night, was Abraham Lincoln. The stress; 
and strain of those days and nights of struggle, 
with all the responsibilities and sorrows of a na- 
tion fighting for its life thrust upon him, had 
broken down his strength, and, for a time, un- 
dermined even his courage. He had traveled 
alone in disguise, and at night, from Washing- 
ton to Brooklyn to> gain the sympathy and help 
of one whom he knew as a man of God, engaged 
in the same great battle in which he was the 
leader. Alone, for hours that night, the two 
wrestled together in! prayer with the God of bat- 
tles and the Watcher over the right, until they 
received the help which he has promised to 
those who seek his aid. 

Lincoln went back to the great duties which 
awaited him with the divine assurance that the 
eternal God was his dwelling-place, and under- 
neath were the everlasting arms. 

And thus it comes to pass, that the last and 
supremest word we have to say concerning 
Abraham Lincoln is, that he was a man of God. 



THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD 



THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD 

Our most intelligent conception of God is 
derived from a study of man's nature. God 
opened a way to a knowledge of his own na- 
ture, when he said that man was made in his 
likeness. Man is God in miniature — a little pic- 
ture resembling God. 

Revelation is full of its descriptions of God; 
but we always interpret these descriptions by a 
reference to his image, man. We determine the 
meaning of God's love by considering what love 
is in man — love in its noblest and highest mani- 
festations. If we were told that God is love, 
but altogether different from any love with which 
we are familiar, we would remain in total igno- 
rance of God's character. If divine knowledge, 
divine patience and divine love are things of 
which we can form no conception, if they are 
widely separated from anything with which we 
are familiar, then these epithets, applied to God's 
character, have no meaning for us. It is nothing 
261 



262 THE LIVING CHRIST 

to us that God is said to be compassionate, if 
his compassion bears no likeness to human 
compassion. 

We like to look at the photograph of some 
distinguished individual. Our active imagina- 
tion begins, at once, to fill it out. In the mind's 
eye, the little man in the picture is expanded 
to life size. We clothe him with all the charac- 
teristics that belonged to him as a living being. 
Wd try to conceive of him as he is in real life. 
We so exalt the little image, a thousand times 
less than the original, that when, at last, we are 
permitted to behold the real man himself, we 
say, immediately, "Oh, I have seen that man be- 
fore ; I have his picture." 

It is by some such process that we obtain our 
conception of God. All the noblest ideas in the 
human soul are so many photographs of God. 
We take up one, examine it, and finch it good- 
ness. Every man has an idea of goodness, 
which is a little miniature of one characteristic 
of God. Expand it and carry it up to life size. 
Let your grandest conception of goodness be 
realized and you have obtained some idea of 
what it is, in God. You have an idea of purity, 
which, also, is a little picture of God. Lift it 
up, idealize it and, by it, interpret God. 



THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD 263 

In all the high qualities of our nature, man 
becomes the medium of our knowledge of God. 
But, mark you, it is man in the broadest sense. 
It is man, including man and woman, which, I 
believe, is sometimes forgotten. The way in 
which Holy Writ speaks of this subject is very 
significant. In the likeness of God made he 
man; male and female created he them, and 
called their name Adam, or man. Both together 
were called man. Thus, we are taught that the 
complete idea of man is not found in either one 
of the sexes alone, but unitedly. And this is a 
very important consideration in understanding 
God's character. We discover God's nature 
by studying man, made in his image. But man 
includes both man and woman; therefore, in our 
endeavors to learn God's character, it is our 
duty to study woman's nature, as well as man's. 
How much is said about the fatherhood of God ! 
Well, it is perfectly right and proper to speak of 
the fatherhood of God; but it is as proper to 
speak of the motherhood of God, who has as 
many qualities that are typified by the mother's 
nature as the father's. 

There is, then, a motherhood of God, as re- 
flected from woman's nature. Moreover, man- 



264 THE LIVING CHRIST 

kind desires the mother element in God. It is 
a very significant fact, that all cultured idolators 
idolize woman. The Phoenicians had their Ash- 
toreth, whom they worshiped ; the Greeks, their 
Venus; the Romans, their Juno. India has its 
Lakshmi ; Romanism, its Mary, "the mother of 
God;" and even Comte, the father of material- 
istic infidelity, provides for the adoration of 
woman. He, virtually, eliminates God from the 
universe, refuses to* believe in anything super- 
natural, rejects, of course, revelation and Jesus 
Christ ; but he admits that man has a nature 
that inclines him, to worship, and recommends 
that woman shall be the object of this worship. 
Every error simulates some truth. What, then, 
is the truth that underlies the fact of the exist- 
ence of such creations as Juno, Venus, Ash- 
toreth? It is, that mankind seeks that type of 
divinity represented by woman's nature. It not 
only loves to> think of God as possessing mas- 
culine qualities, but feminine, also; and the Bible 
tells us that this universal desire of mam is well 
grounded. God is mother, as well as father. 
The prophet Isaiah, speaking the words of the 
Lord, in reference to those who should dwell in 
Jerusalem, wrote, "As one whom his mother 



THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD 265 

comforteth, so will I comfort you." God 
promises to be a mother to them. 

We obtain a very inadequate conception of 
God through the higher experiences of man 
alone. There is more in God's nature than can 
be seen by the exclusive study of man. He is 
not the image of every quality that belongs to 
the character of God. It is woman that is the 
image of some of the loveliest elements in the 
divine nature. And I think many errors re- 
specting God have crept in by the one-sided 
study of man alone. The motherhood of God is 
often overlooked. All the noble elements of char- 
acter, that are marked traits in woman's nature, 
are to be carried up and attributed to God. His 
image is to be sought in her equally with man. 

One of the characteristic qualities of the per- 
fect man is strength. We are quick to say this 
is the image of God ; and so we lift it up, ideal- 
ize it, and interpret God, who is limitless in his 
power. There belongs to the perfect man not 
only strength of muscle, but strength of purpose. 
So we expand this idea and apply it to God. 
We say, he cannot be stayed in his purpose. If 
man has an energetic will, much more, God. 
True manhood is accompanied with discretion, 



266 THE LIVING CHRIST 

judgment, wisdom. This image, in man, is am- 
plified and made to interpret God. We call him 
wise, — so wise, that our wisdom seems foolish- 
ness in his sight. 

But how about some of the qualities that, by 
nature, belong to the perfect woman, qualities 
which must also be used in order to interpret 
God's nature? We cannot understand the love 
of God till we look for its image in the mother. 
What are some of the peculiarities of a mother's 
love, in its relation to her child? First, she be- 
stows her love upon it, while the child is uncon- 
scious of her affection. It makes no difference 
to the good mother whether her child knows 
and understands her love or not. She loves it 
always, consciousi or unconscious of love's mani- 
festation. Oftentimes, you hear men say that 
they do not care much about children until they 
get to be interesting. You never heard a 
mother say that. It is very seldom that men 
bestow much love on an object that is uncon- 
scious of it. They want to see immediate re- 
turns of their love. "When the child gets big 
enough to know me and call me by name, I will 
show it some attention." This is not woman's 
love, at all. She loves the little one that ap- 



THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD 267 

predates none of her affection, as well as the one 
that fully reciprocates it. It is her nature to do 
so. This, then, is an image of God ; and we are 
to lift it up, idealize it and apply it to God's na- 
ture, and say, it is one of God's characteristics 
to love, when the object of that love is uncon- 
scious of it. Here is a man who never thinks 
that God loves him. In fact, he believes that 
God cares nothing for him. As he goes to his 
daily tasks, and pursues his life, he is totally un- 
conscious that there is any affection in the great 
heart of God for him. But what of that? God 
loves the man notwithstanding — loves him 
with all the solicitude and tenderness of a 
mother who loves her infant child that knows 
not its right hand from its left. 

There is not a person, however distant the 
thought of God may be from his mind, but that 
has lavished upon him, in his unconsciousness, 
this wonderful love of God. Woman's love, in 
this regard, is but a faint image of the divine. 
How great isi that love poured forth by the In- 
finite One — so great we cannot reach up to it, 
even in imagination! How few recognize it! 
The world, like the tiny infant, lies in the arms 
of Almighty God, unconscious of his love. Men 



268 THE LIVING CHRIST 

imagine that God cannot love them unless they 
coax it out of him. Do the roots, the grasses 
and the flowers have to send messages to the 
sun, in order to get him to shine upon them and 
warm them into life? Do* they say to him, come 
back, come back? No, the sun comes forth 
from his far voyaging and overhangs the sleep- 
ing fields of flowers, until they feel his pres- 
ence. Before a single plant has penetrated 
through to the surface of the earth, the sun is 
there, with his beams ready to bathe it in his 
warmth. God, so to speak, overhangs the 
place where we are, and pours upon our uncon- 
scious heads;, his love. We do not have to im- 
portune God to love us, any more than the in- 
sensible child in the mother's arms. 

There is another peculiarity of a mother's love. 
She bestows it upon the object of her affection, 
though it be apparently very uninteresting. She 
will love her child, though, to a spectator, it 
may seem to< be without any attractive charac- 
teristics. How many unpromising children 
there are in this world! Some are utterly un- 
lovable, born ugly and distorted. Some have 
physical blemishes that spoil their comeliness; 
they are deformed, weak, imbecile. To the 



THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD 269 

stranger, they are repulsive. But what of the 
mother? How does she regard her ill-favored 
child? Did you ever see a child so disfigured, 
either by physical or mental deformities, that its 
mother did not love it? No. How she throws 
the arms of affection around her child, who has 
not the first sign of promise ! It may be its 
mind is darkened and idiocy enthroned in the 
soul. No matter, there is one to love the idiot. 
There is one to clasp the most unfortunate 
creature that was ever called a human being; 
and this is the mother, who bore it. Her heart 
always feels for it. Why? It is her nature to 
do it. Very well, then this is the image of God. 
Lift up this idea, idealize it and ascribe it to 
God's nature. He too, loves all ill-shapen crea- 
tures. 

Some men are frightful, horrid, repulsive. 
We turn away from them with disgust. But 
what of God? How does he regard them? He 
loves them. For the mother's nature is his. 
Do you ask, how can he do it? Tell me how 
the mother loves her imbecile child, and I will 
tell you how God loves these miserable crea- 
tures, whom the world despises. Here we have 
an answer to a prevalent belief that God does 



270 THE LIVING CHRIST 

not look out or care for anybody. Do you sup- 
pose, men say, that God has any special regard 
for the degraded beings that live in poverty 
and wickedness, for a creature, that has sunk to 
the lowest depths of shame? God, you say, 
cannot love that being. Ah, you do not under- 
stand the motherhood of God! He does love 
that being. And the mystery is no greater than 
appears in the mother's loving this same crea- 
ture. You never looked upon a human being 
unloved by his mother. God is mother to every 
son of earth, and why should he not love that 
being, too? 

Another peculiarity of a mother's love is, that 
she frequently bestows it upon an object that 
does not return it, that is, she bestows unre- 
quited love. How some children have treated 
their mothers ! They have grown up disobedient, 
hateful, vicious, despising the counsel of their 
home. They exhibit no love for those who are 
their best earthly friends. But how is this ob- 
duracy and hardness of heart endured by the 
mother? Is her natural affection turned into 
hate? Never. Where is the mother who does 
not love her dissolute son? I know a father 
who has turned his son into the street and told 



THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD 271 

him never to cross the threshold over which he 
was wont to pass with the utmost freedom. The 
son has been given up by his father. But how 
is it with the mother? Oh, how her heart yearns 
for her wayward boy ! She loves him. It is her 
nature to love her child, though this love is un- 
requited. Well, then, this is an image of God's 
love. Lift it up, expand it, and let it be set 
in God's nature. He loves when it is not re- 
turned. 

Think what is going on in this world of sin. 
How much opposition there is to God ! Think 
of the profanity, think how men often despise 
religion, think how they hate the truth. Never- 
theless, God commendeth his love toward us, in 
that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for 
us. "God so loved the world." What world? 
Why, this world — this disobedient, ungrateful, 
hateful, headstrong and perverse world. Oh 
how strange, that he should love those who 
have trampled all that is sacred in his law under 
their feet! How can he love such? Tell me 
how the mother loves her dissolute son, who 
has despised her teaching, and I will tell you 
how God loves his wayward children. The one 
is the image of the other. The one is the little 



zyz THE LIVING CHRIST 

picture, which, when expanded, represents the 
mystery of God's love. 

Again, the mother reflects in her nature the 
sympathy of God. As the iEolian gives forth 
sweet music, when swept by the breath of the 
winds, so is the mother's heart sensitive to every 
breath of sorrow that comes up from her chil- 
dren. Did you ever see a good mother who 
was not ready to have poured into her ears the 
griefs of her little ones? Whoever heard a true 
mother say to the child who came to her, bur- 
dened with sadness, Go away from me ; I do n't 
want to hear a word about your trials; I care 
nothing for them. It is not the way she treats 
her children. Oh, how she folds them to her 
bosom and listens to all their woes ! Not a sor- 
row but that draws out her warmest sympathy. 
She feels every pang of her children. This is 
beautiful to behold, and it is an image of God's 
sympathy. Lift up the idea and spread it out, 
until it shall include every human being on the 
face of the earth. As the mother sympathizes 
with those that are of her own flesh , and blood, 
so God sympathizes with every child that comes 
from his hand, all over the broad world. He 
has ,the mother nature ; and not a grief that we 



THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD 273 

pour into his ears is unheard and unfelt by him. 
Touched with a feeling of our infirmities, how he 
loves to gather us in his bosom, and whisper 
comfort to our souls ! Not a tear falls, but he 
notices it with a responsive throb of his great 
heart. How vividly Christ taught the sympathy 
of God! What a heart of pity was his! All 
went to him, the poor and miserable, earth's re- 
jected ones; for they knew he would hear them, 
though all others despised their cry. Christ 
showed the motherhood of God. 

The motherhood of God is reflected in the 
wonderful patience and forgiveness of our 
earthly mothers. Think how much the mother 
endures for the sake of her children! She will 
exhaust the father's patience, twenty times. 
Think further of the forgiveness that is in- 
grained in her nature. We can hardly con- 
ceive of a mother's refusing to forgive her re- 
pentant child. "Mother, forgive me, I will not 
do so again." Where is the mother heart, that 
answers, "I will never forgive you, my child. I 
will treasure up your evil deeds in my memory 
and never return you to a place in my affections. 
I care not for your repentance"? No, this is 
not the mother's nature. It forgives. Let, 



274 THE LIVING CHRIST 

then, this characteristic of his mother's nature 
be carried up and applied to God. He is such 
a one as your mother is, in respect to patience 
and forgiveness. Just ask him to forgive your 
sin and he will do it quicker than ever your 
mother did. Oh, how a woman's heart bounds 
with delight, when she hears her recreant child 
say, "Mother, I am going to be good in the fu- 
ture. I am not going to make you any more 
trouble. I am sorry for my bad conduct." 
Breathe these same words into God's ear. Tell 
him that you are going ( to try, in the future, to 
be good and not make him any more trouble. 
Tell him that you are sorry you have been so 
unheedful of his requirements, and oh, how our 
Great Mother will rejoice at such a step, and 
clasp you in her arms and say, I forgive you all, 
go and sin no more, and all that I have is thine! 
We have considered only a partial view of the 
mother side of God's nature. All that is highest 
and noblest and most beautiful in woman's na- 
ture, is but the image of what is found in God's 
character. He is not only our Father in 
heaven, but also our Mother in - heaven. I 
sometimes think that our view of God is con- 
fined too much to the father side — the side that 



THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD 275 

furnishes us an image of sternness, of strength, 
of power and of wisdom. These are, preemi- 
nently, characteristics of the masculine nature — 
and the chief qualities that a great many ascribe 
to God. Why, how many people there are in 
the world, who think God does not love them 
much, or is not very much interested in their 
lives. "God does not sympathize with me in my 
sorrow, he does not bend to such as I." Why is 
this feeling so prevalent? I will tell you. It is 
because they have stripped God of his mother 
nature. They know nothing of his motherhood. 
Many a one has said, "I wish God were as good 
as my mother. How she feels for me, how she 
loves me, how she tenderly cares for me! I 
wish God were just like my mother, in this re- 
gard." Well, he is. Think a moment. Do 
you suppose that your mother is better than 
God? Do you suppose that our heavenly 
Father has made our mothers better than him- 
self? Do you suppose they have more lovely 
traits of character than he has?, Oh, away with 
such a thought ! Whatever lovely trait of char- 
acter you behold in your mother, lift it up, ideal- 
ize it, and ascribe it to God, for she is his image. 
That cold, dreary philosophy that represents 



276 THE LIVING CHRIST 

God looking down indifferently upon the affairs 
of the world, arises from our overlooking the 
motherhood of God. Let him be invested in 
our minds with the mother element, and it will 
no longer seem strange that he loves us and 
sympathizes with us, though we seem to be 
utterly unworthy of , it. For, do not our earthly 
mothers do the same thing, on a smaller scale? 
Do not they love unpromising, ungrateful chil- 
dren? Much more then, he, who is perfect in 
love, loves all. 

Then, how can you help loving such a being as 
God, — hovering over you with a love that is 
but faintly typified by the purest mother-love? 
How can you say, "I will live as I have a mind 
to, I will not regard his will"? How can you 
discharge the duties of life without one thought 
of serving him, or being his child, by adoption? 
How can you remain unmoved by such a love 
as God is exercising toward you, every day and 
moment of your life. How can you, young 
men, who have such tender regard for your 
mothers, refrain from loving your Father in 
heaven, who has yearned over yon with a 
greater tenderness than ever she in whose 



THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD 277 

arms you first reposed. How can you, parents 
and children, refuse to be the followers of him, 
whose love could find no adequate expression, 
until he sent his dear Son to die for us? How 
can you help deciding, at once, that, "As for me 
and my house, we will serve the Lord"? 



AN EVER-EXPANDING THEOLOGY 



AN EVER-EXPANDING THEOLOGY 

In view of a seemingly unsettled state of 
theology, the question, "Where are we at?" is 
often asked, with the thought that theology is 
waning and that soon it will be cast into the 
fire altogether. There is an intimation that 
theology is a sort of superfluity and may well 
be gotten rid of. They tell us that theological 
opinions are in a chaotic state at the present 
time; and, therefore, it is impossible to have 
any definite and fixed belief; hence the ques- 
tion, "Where are we at?" which indicates the 
alarming uncertainty that broods over the the- 
ological world. 

It is very important that we have an under- 
standing as to what theology is, what it means. 
It may be defined as the exercise of thought 
on religious things; or, we may say it is the 
intellectual apprehension of divine truth; or, 
we may give it a definition with still greater 
precision, and say it represents the formulated 
281 



282 THE LIVING CHRIST 

results of such intellectual apprehension, in the 
form of classified knowledge; and this consti- 
tutes a science. What is botany? It is the ex- 
ercise of thought on plant life, or an intellectual 
apprehension of this kind of life; or, it is the 
formulated results of such apprehension which 
takes the form of classified knowledge ; and this 
constitutes a science. When shall we get 
rid of botany? When people stop thinking 
about trees and plants and flowers. When shall 
we get rid of theology? When we stop think- 
ing upon religious things. But as long as we 
think upon these matters, we shall have some 
sort of theology. It is just as inevitable as in- 
telligence. 

When a man declares that theology is un- 
necessary and superfluous, he might as well tell 
us that intelligence is unnecessary and super- 
fluous. Religion is an instinctive impulse, sen- 
timent, aspiration or tendency in every human 
soul; it is there, binding each soul to the Soul 
of the universe, as gravity binds the planet to 
the sun. Every man has this Godward ten- 
dency; and, therefore, he is compelled to think 
about it; and what he thinks about it becomes 
his theology. Do you imagine that a man can 



AN EVER-EXPANDING THEOLOGY 283 

live in this world and not think about God, or 
about the future life, or about the person of 
Christ, or about the Christian religion that is 
taught in the churches? He may not think 
very deeply or habitually, about these things, 
but he will think; and his thinking will breed 
an opinion; and that opinion will be his the- 
ology. Now observe the significance of the 
fact that theology follows as an inevitable 
consequence from the exercise of thought 
about religious things. 

What will be the character of our theology? 
It will depend upon what we think upon re- 
ligious things. If our thinking is casual and 
superficial, we shall have a lean and attenuated 
form of theology, which will have but little 
influence upon our practical life. Those who 
pay but little attention to religious things, are, 
usually, those who entertain the view that the- 
ology is of no earthly value. The trouble is, 
they have not gone far enough in their thinking 
to create an opinion that is worth anything for 
themselves or anybody else. They do not care 
anything about theology, for the same reason 
that a man does not care anything about Greek, 
because he never studied it. 



284 THE LIVING CHRIST 

Since theology comes into existence by the 
exercise of thought on religious things, we see 
that progress is not only possible but certain, 
and will be more or less continuous. For 
thought is affected by knowledge, and knowl- 
edge grows from age to age. Paul affirms the 
inevitableness of progress, when he tells the 
Colossian Christians that they are to be found 
"increasing in the knowledge of God." As 
time passes, they are to know more and more 
about God; the subject is boundless and they 
will never reach the limit, but are likely to keep 
adding to their knowledge of God, which im- 
plies an ever enlarging and expanding theology. 
As we learn about God, not only through the 
Scriptures but through creation itself, our 
knowledge of God will increase, whatever may 
be the field in which discovery is made. All 
knowledge pertains to God, that is, has some- 
thing to do in revealing what he is; and, there- 
fore, all knowledge will have its bearing on 
theology, and tend to modify it, according as 
every additional fact of knowledge is taken up 
into it and appropriated. 

Some people seem to think that theology 
should always be the same, unchanging as the 



AN EVER-EXPANDING THEOLOGY 285 

course of the seasons. Undoubtedly, the great 
and essential features will remain without sub- 
stantial modification. We never shall outgrow 
the fact that the world needs saving and that 
Christ was commissioned to do it. But in a 
thousand subordinate particulars, changes will 
be required, simply because an increasing 
knowledge of God makes it inevitable. In 
order to have a fixed, utterly stable and un- 
changeable theology, we should have to keep it 
in "storage," and prevent people from dis- 
covering new ideas. But allow men the free- 
dom of discovery, and new facts of knowledge 
will constantly be coming to light, and must 
be taken account of. These considerations 
enable us to account for some things which 
are very disturbing to some minds. 

What is it that has brought about the un- 
settled conditions of religious thought, in the 
midst of which we now find ourselves? It is 
sometimes said that we are passing through a 
transition period, and that is why there are so 
many theological disturbances. But every 
period is a transition period; we are always 
passing out of the old into the new. The 
former period never exactly corresponds with 



286 THE LIVING CHRIST 

the present. Why? Because there are new 
facts of knowledge discovered, which were not 
known in the former period. It may be true 
that there never has been a transition period 
like this; and the reason may be in the mul- 
tiplicity of new facts and ideas that have been 
brought to light during the century just 
closed. There has been an amazing increase 
of knowledge in that time; and, as all knowl- 
edge, scientific and otherwise, contributes in 
some measure to the understanding of who and 
what God is, this new knowledge must be 
given a place in our religious thought, 
and find such adjustment to all our previous 
knowledge, as shall maintain the unity of the 
whole. 

Now the trouble with the transition period in 
which we find ourselves, is, that there has been 
so much new knowledge discovered that we 
have become bewildered and confused in trying 
to find a place for it in our previous system of 
thought. Consider the fact, that through the 
researches of physical scientists, this universe is, 
to us, a thousand times larger, a thousand times 
older, a thousand times more complex, and a 
thousand times more pregnant with life than the 



AN EVER-EXPANDING THEOLOGY 287 

men of a century ago dreamed of its being. 
Now, if we have found that our universe is many- 
thousand times larger than the universe of our 
fathers, we have made a discovery that will 
affect our conception of God in some degree; 
and our theology cannot escape some slight 
modifications. Why, how small the universe 
used to be in the minds of men ! The earth was 
the center of it ; and all the orbs in the heavens 
were its satellites. Then came the discovery 
that the earth is not the center of our planetary 
system, but the sun; and that the sun, with all 
his satellites, is but one of myriad like systems 
scattered through space. How all these ideas 
modified our conception of God! How our 
theology expanded in reference to the great- 
ness and grandeur of God! 

Or, take the thought that the universe is 
many thousand times older than our fathers 
considered it. They held that it was in the 
neighborhood of 6,000 years old; we know that 
it is many millions. They thought that they 
were having a transition period with a ven- 
geance, when they were told they must give up 
the idea that the earth was made in six literal 
days, and that ages on ages were consumed in 



288 THE LIVING CHRIST 

bringing it to its present degree of perfection. 
Confused and dazed, they were inquiring, What 
wilt become of our theology, and what will be- 
come of the Bible, if it took longer than a week 
to make the earth? But the transition was 
made from the old to the new idea. What was 
the result? A better theology, and a Bible in- 
terpreted not only in harmony with the latest 
geological facts, but in harmony with itself, so 
that, to-day, no one thinks of six literal days, as 
he reads the story of creation. Such a reading 
would seem forced and strained. But before 
the transition was made, there was tremendous 
excitement in the theological world. Prophe- 
cies of the utter overthrow of the Christian re- 
ligion were proclaimed in view of the changed 
conception in regard to the creation, just as 
some people think, nowadays, that Christianity 
and the churches are "going to the dogs," be- 
cause there is an unsettled condition of theo' 
logical belief. 

What means this unsettled condition? It does 
not mean that truth is being gotten rid of. It 
means that so many new ideas and facts have 
been discovered that we are bewildered as to 
what we will do with them. We must use them. 



AN EVER-EXPANDING THEOLOGY 289 

Our theology must receive them. But just 
how to make them fit or dovetail into the sys- 
tem as we have it — this is the nub of the prob- 
lem. 

Our present-day theology is obliged to make 
use of the doctrine of evolution. At one time 
evolution seemed a frightful thing. Surely, 
people said, there will be no help for the Chris- 
tian religion now. Evolution has unsettled all 
our notions concerning it. But what is there 
about evolution that should cause any one to 
have the nightmare? What is evolution? It 
is simply a question about the formation, not the 
creation, of the universe; "God created the 
heaven and the earth." That word will stand 
forever. But how about the formation? The 
old idea was, that there were as many separate 
creations as there were things. God created 
outright this thing, that thing and the other. 
But science has shown us that things are more 
closely related than we had supposed. There is 
a sort of brotherhood running through creation. 
God put into lower things a tendency to be- 
come higher things. He introduced the prin- 
ciple of development. Therefore, instead of 
having an act of creation in every single in- 



290 THE LIVING CHRIST 

stance, we have a process of formation of one 
thing from another. God causes the universe 
to grow, instead of springing into existence 
ready-made, by a creative stroke. This gives us 
a grander conception of God. But it was very 
hard to make room for it in our theology. It 
was in the minds of some that it would be the 
ruination of Christianity and the churches, if the 
doctrine of evolution was accepted. 

But the transition was made; and men saw 
that it was not a question of life or death to our 
Christian faith, whether God was a long spell or 
a short spell in bringing the universe to its 
present condition. It began to seem, however, 
that the long spell was more in keeping with an 
infinite and eternal God, in whose spirit, "a 
thousand years in thy sight are but as yester- 
day when it is past, and as a watch in the night !" 

But this opened the way for another transi- 
tion of view in regard to the Bible. Scholars 
began to say, God did not hurry up and make 
the world in a minute, but employed a slow 
process of development. Is not this his cus- 
tomary method of action? Is not this the way 
the Bible came into existence? The world grew 
to be what it is. Di4 not the Bible grow to be 
what it is? 



AN EVER-EXPANDING THEOLOGY 291 

The great question about the Bible to-day is, 
whether it is a growth-book or a fiat-book. It 
is not many years ago that the prevailing notion 
about the Bible was, that it was a fiat-book. 
That is, it came into the world, virtually, ready- 
made by the hand of God. To be sure there 
were writers of the Bible ; but they were merely 
amanuenses, writing down from dictation. We 
say we are living in a transition period; now, 
one feature of that transition is, the attempt to 
regard the Bible as a growth-book, instead of 
a fiat-book. This question, with certain others 
involved, is the main cause of the religious un- 
settlement and disturbance which we find exist- 
ing at the present time. The question might 
take this form: Can the Bible, as a growth- 
book, be regarded as really God's book, as a 
fiat-book? Well, can the world be regarded as 
really God's world, when we think of it as un- 
folding according to the doctrine of evolution, 
as when we think of all things coming into ex- 
istence by separate acts of creation? I believe 
that God is more closely identified with the 
world, under the conception of evolution, than 
under any other. And I believe that the Bible 
is a better book for humanity, with the concep- 



292 THE LIVING CHRIST 

tion that it was not made outright, by God him- 
self, but made by man, asi his instrument, that is, 
God working through man, for its production. 
But just what is meant by thinking of the Bible 
as a growth-book? It means that God has been 
revealing truth to men, as fast as they would 
recognize and use it. 

Suppose the whole New Testament had been 
poured out upon the world at the very begin- 
ning of human history. It would have appeared 
to men as a conundrum rather than a source 
of enlightenment. Men had to be drilled, at the 
outset, in the belief that there is one God, not 
many gods. It took a long time to get that 
idea into the minds of a people specially chosen 
for training in divine things. 

Then they had to be drilled a long time re- 
specting the character of God. What sort of a 
being is he ? He is powerful, for he created the 
heavens and the earth. But power does not al- 
ways imply goodness. Is he just> and holy and 
good? Several thousand years were employed to 
bring men up to the conception that God is gra- 
cious, slow to< anger and plenteous in mercy. 
And then, when the "fulness of the time" had 
come, that is, when the training had reached the 



AN EVER-EXPANDING THEOLOGY 293 

point where a full revelation could be made re- 
specting the character of God, and be appre- 
ciated and used, Jesus Christ came into the 
world and set at rest, forever, any questioning 
concerning the goodness and love, of God. 

No man can read the Old Testament under- 
standingly, who does not view it as a history of 
the method whereby Israel was trained, up, by 
slow stages, to gain a proper conception of the 
character of God. What was that method? It 
was the method of growth. And this growth 
was not merely an outside development, which 
found its expression in human experience. The 
Bible grew, as divine truth was more and more 
embodied in the lives of men. 

Thus it comes to pass that our religion is 
more than a life-religion, more than a book- 
religion. Looking at the Bible, from the stand- 
point of growth, it calls for a new method of 
study. If the Bible grew, then there are parts of 
it farther advanced than other parts; that is, 
they occupy a higher level; that which is first 
would not be equal in] every particular to that 
which is last. The Old Testament would not 
and could not contain all the value of the New 
Testament. There would be the blade, then 



294 THE LIVING CHRIST 

the ear, and then the full corn in the ear. This 
fact has led to a new method of studying the 
Scriptures. 

Without condemning, or doing away with 
other methods, reverent scholars are studying 
the Bible to-day just as they study nature. 
They employ the inductive method. They 
marshall the facts from near and from far ; they 
classify and arrange them, and then make up 
their conclusions. It is no question but that 
they have made many mistakes in their conclu- 
sions; they have sometimes left the Bible with 
the supernatural obscured, or even eradicated; 
but such results, sooner or later, miscarry and 
recoil upon the heads of those who adopt them. 

This is the point : the scientific way of study- 
ing the Bible is a correct one. How can you 
press the claims of Christianity, when it is held 
that you must not study the Bible, as God's 
revelation, as you do nature, which is, also, 
God'a revelation. Freedom of inquiry must not 
be put under the ban, if we are to make our ap- 
peal to the more thoughtful men and women of 
our time. In the meantime, it is said, we are 
in a very bad way, in these days of free discus- 
sion. It is considered a dangerous and hazard- 



AN EVER-EXPANDING THEOLOGY 295 

ous thing to look upon the Bible in any different 
fashion from that of a century ago. Now ob- 
serve, that the whole trouble is one largely con- 
cerned with methods, not with essential truths. 
Modern criticism does not get rid of God; it 
does not get rid of Christ as the Redeemer of 
men; it does not get rid of men's spiritual need; 
it does not get rid of the Bible; it simply gets 
rid of certain notions which have existed con- 
cerning the method by which God reaches men 
with his truth. He does not employ the fiat-way 
of doing things in the religious world, so much 
as the growth-way. On this hinges the main- 
difficulty of those who think that theological 
beliefs are at sixes and sevens. But when our 
minds become adjusted to this method of look- 
ing at our religion, we shall find that Christianity 
stands on a firmer foundation than ever before. 
I rejoice to believe that we are at the dawn 
of an era which shall surely work a new, higher, 
more helpful religious thought than has been 
dreamed of hitherto, except in the blessed gos- 
pel of the Son of man ! 



NOV 101903 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: March 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



